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Coroner Backed 2nd Company's Bid While Working for Them: Elected Official Told County to Give Contract, Despite Lower Offers

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 15:01 CDT

By Nichole Monroe Bell and Melissa Manware, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

May 24--In what a state official Tuesday called a second "potential ethics violation," York County, S.C., Coroner Doug McKown has been working for the company he recommended the county hire to transport bodies.

Also Tuesday, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division said it has an open investigation into the coroner's office that started in June on an allegation of mishandling of evidence. SLED would not release details of the investigation.

Fred Handsel, co-owner of Charlotte-based Carolina Mortuary, said Tuesday that he had paid McKown $6,868.74 over the past six years to do embalming. He said McKown is on a list of people he calls when his regular embalmer is unavailable and that McKown has done five or six procedures a year for the company.

The company, which transports bodies and prepares them for funerals , also employed McKown's girlfriend, Erin Jenkins, for four months in 2004.

McKown, a Republican, is an elected official whose office is responsible for investigating all unattended deaths in the county.

Until last year, bodies were taken from death sites to the county morgue sometimes by transport companies, sometimes by county employees working extra time and paid by the coroner's office. Carolina Mortuary received about half of the coroner's office's $20,000 body transport budget in 2004-05.

County staff expressed liability concerns to the coroner's office because county employees were doing the work. The staff asked for another method.

In March 2005, McKown stood before the York County Council and persuaded council members to hire Carolina Mortuary to do all of the county coroner's transports for a year.

McKown endorsed Carolina Mortuary even though the company didn't offer the lowest rate of the four that submitted proposals. In his presentation that night, McKown said Carolina Mortuary was the most experienced and that he'd sent work to it before, assistant county manager David Larson said.

Herb Hayden, executive director of the S.C. Ethics Commission, said elected officials are not allowed to participate in decisions in which they, or businesses they are associated with, have an economic interest.

It's the second case revealed in the past week in which McKown was being paid by a company he recommended the county hire. He also has worked for York Pathology, which does almost all of the county's autopsies.

McKown is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of pending criminal charges. He and Jenkins, his girlfriend, were charged May 15 with conspiracy to sell cocaine and possession of cocaine.

Larson said county managers never knew McKown also worked for the company. By contract, Carolina Mortuary now receives all of the coroner's office transport budget, which was increased to $31,800 this year.

Handsel said he wished McKown had been up front about the work.

"We got the county's contract fair and square," said Handsel, who said he has known McKown for 15 to 20 years. "Doug should have recused himself and said he'd done part-time work for us. We'd have gotten the contract anyway."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

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Source: The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)

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