COLUMBIA, S.C. — The final defendant in the failed VC Summer nuclear reactor case has been sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison
Judge Mary Lewis mentioned several reasons for her decision to sentence Jeffrey Benjamin to time in prison. Those included the fact that his acts were dishonest and caused great harm to many people throughout South Carolina, to promote respect for the law and to ensure that future executives know there are serious consequences for these types of actions. She didn’t believe anything less than this sentencing would be sufficient.
Wednesday morning, Benjamin, a former Westinghouse executive, stood in federal court for his involvement in the failed multi-billion dollar nuclear project.
The VC Summer nuclear expansion project started as a shared effort between VC Summer nuclear generating stations owners, SCANA and Santee Cooper. This was in an effort to build new nuclear reactors to provide energy to our state’s growing population. SCANA hired Westinghouse to manage the construction.
But along the way, the project ran into problems and was abandoned in 2017.
Executives from across the project were charged for their involvement in the failure of the projects, including Benjamin. Prosecutors he lied about the timeline and progress of the construction at the plant.
“We view these as some of the most necessary prosecutions that we do in the office corporate executives, as Judge Lewis said, because there's so many layers, are very rarely held to account for their activities, this is obviously in Judge Lewis's word of fiasco for the state of South Carolina. The impact on the community has been devastating,” Assistant US Attorney Winston Holliday said.
Benjamin pleaded guilty to withholding key information from SCE&G, as well as state and federal regulators about huge delays and cost overruns with the project. Those delays ultimately cost ratepayers $9 billion with nothing to show for it.
Prosecutors requested a 12 month sentence with the defense arguing Benjamin should receive probation due to medical reasons. Prosecutors rejected this saying the Bureau of Prisoners would be able to care for Benjamin if needed.
Benjamin is also responsible for paying a $100,000 fine.
“Deterrence is everything in this matter, not only to deter him as he gets back into whatever industry that he's going to work in, but also corporate executives in general, and they know that, though they're not under the scrutiny of some other people, that when they are caught, that they will face significant consequences and to us, for the US Attorney's Office, really the only the highest consequence, the one that has the most deterrent effect, is prison,” Holliday said.
The defense shared their disappointment with the ruling.
"The place for Mr. Benjamin is not prison. He belongs in the energy sector, we’re quite confident he’ll return there soon and we continue to evaluate all of our legal options," Bill Sullivan, Benjamin's lawyer, said.
Other executives charged in this included the Westinghouse project director, as well as the former SCANA CEO and SCANA executive vice president.