COLUMBIA ATTORNEY CHARGED WITH COMMITTING SEX CRIMES AGAINST A CHILD, SHERIFF SAYS

Josephine Rodriguez ABOUT SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS, SENIOR SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS APPREHENDED, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS WHO REOFFEND

March 18, 2021
Noah Feit, John Monk
The State

A Columbia attorney was arrested Thursday morning on child sex crime charges, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said.

Harry Gregory, 60, was taken into custody without incident at about 7:40 a.m., the sheriff’s department said in a news release.

Later Thursday, a Richland County magistrate ordered that Gregory be released from the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond.

Gregory’s lawyer, Greg Harris of Columbia, said in an interview that Magistrate Mildred Metts found that Gregory was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

Gregory is a longtime Columbia area resident whose parents live in the area and who has been living in the same house for some 30 years, Harris said. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and its law school. Gregory has no prior criminal record and the charges against him are more than 15 years old, Harris said.

On Thursday morning, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant and arrest warrant on Gregory at a home on Windsor Road, according to the sheriff’s department release.

Gregory was charged with lewd acts upon a child, stemming from incidents that occurred from 2002 to 2004 when the victim was a minor, the sheriff’s department said.

Members of the sheriff’s department Fugitive Task Force, Special Victims Unit, Major Crimes Unit, and the Columbia Police Department participated in the arrest.

Gregory was taken into custody around dawn when a team of officers showed up at his house and used a loudspeaker system to ask him to come out. He did not come up at first, but eventually emerged without incident, according to law enforcement sources.

If convicted on the felony charge, Gregory would face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine, according to South Carolina law.

Gregory is a former director of the S.C. State Accident Fund.

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article250029429.html

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