A magistrate in South Carolina has dismissed the criminal charges against all four defendants in the Pawleys Island Community Church case after finding there was insufficient probable cause to proceed, the South Carolina Attorney General's Office said on Friday, November 6. The ruling ends the criminal case that began with arrests in July, when church and school leaders were accused of allowing a registered sex offender to volunteer on a campus shared by the church and its Christian academy.

Source: WBTW News 13

The decision came after a preliminary hearing at which the officer who had obtained the arrest warrants testified and was cross-examined by defence attorneys, according to Erin Bailey, the attorney for former Pawleys Island Christian Academy director Jennifer “Niki” Howard. Attorney General's Office spokesman Robert Kittle told WBTW News 13 that the dismissal was made by the magistrate, not by prosecutors — a distinction the office stressed after the ruling.

Source: WBTW News 13

How the case began

The investigation centred on Warren Spencer Perry, a 70-year-old registered sex offender who was volunteering as a custodian and maintenance worker at Pawleys Island Christian Academy, which shared the church campus in Pawleys Island, in Georgetown County. According to earlier reporting by Baptist News Global, Perry had a 2023 conviction for sexually exploiting a minor. He was first arrested on July 14 for a probation violation and was rearrested on July 20 on charges of obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, Church Leaders reported.

Source: The Christian Post

Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver announced in July that former senior pastor Donald Williams and academy director Howard were charged with obstruction of justice, taking steps to place children at risk, and criminal conspiracy. The pastor's wife, Virginia “Ginny” Williams, was charged with obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, and former missions and operations director Michael Anthony Fields was also arrested on charges stemming from Perry's involvement with the church, according to the Christian Post and Baptist News Global. The academy was closed in the wake of the arrests, and church leadership changed.

Source: The Christian Post

What the defence told the hearing

Bailey told WBTW that evidence discussed at the hearing showed state probation officials had approved Perry's volunteer work under conditions. She said former senior pastor Don Williams accompanied Perry to a meeting with his probation agent, where they asked whether Perry could keep volunteering on the campus. “The probation agent said that it was okay and provided some guidance, that he should only attend adult functions, that he shouldn't be alone with children, that he should avoid contact with children, but that incidental contact with children was fine,” Bailey said, according to the WBTW report.

Source: WBTW News 13

Bailey said probation officials also visited the church and inspected its facilities, and described a written safety plan under which Perry performed grounds maintenance under conditions intended to protect children — a plan she said was followed, to the best of her knowledge. She said interviews conducted through the Children's Recovery Center produced no reports of abuse from children, and that no evidence was presented at the hearing indicating a child had been harmed on the campus. That account is the defence attorney's characterisation of the evidence; it is not a court finding on the separate civil lawsuits.

Source: WBTW News 13

Bailey said Howard was “absolutely heartbroken that, whatever role she played in this, that it let down the parents.” She said Howard believed the children were safe and that Perry was supervised, while acknowledging that better decisions could have been made.

Source: WBTW News 13

The sheriff stands by the investigation

Sheriff Weaver defended the investigation after the ruling. “I stand firmly behind the thorough work of this agency's investigators and the agents with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division,” he said in a statement reported by WBTW. Weaver said he was awaiting more information from the Attorney General's Office about the magistrate's decision, and he questioned the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services' handling of Perry's presence at the church and academy. The department had earlier told ABC 15 that it approved Perry's request to work at the church on the assumption that he would avoid contact with minors, the Christian Post reported.

Source: WBTW News 13

What remains open

The criminal dismissal does not close every proceeding. A separate probation-violation case involving Perry remained unresolved, Bailey said; a judge had taken that matter under advisement to review additional documents. Perry was released from jail on Thursday afternoon, according to the sheriff's office.

Source: WBTW News 13

The civil cases also continue. A federal judge dismissed one proposed class action on October 20 because the plaintiffs had not sufficiently established federal jurisdiction; that decision, by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel, did not address the merits of the allegations. A separate state-court class action seeking $25 million, filed on behalf of students who attended the academy in the past six years, remained pending, and earlier reporting counted seven civil lawsuits arising from the situation in total. The Southern Baptist Convention and its Executive Committee were named as defendants in the federal class action.

Source: The Christian Post