Pubdate: Wed, 30 Oct 2002
Source: Post and Courier, The (SC)
Copyright: 2002 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:   http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Author: SCHUYLER KROPF

CRIMINAL USED AS TOOL IN ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE

A career criminal gunned down by Charleston police more than five years ago 
has become a focal point in the race for attorney general. The violent life 
of "Rusty" Corvette is now front-and-center in Democrat Steve Benjamin's 
campaign against Republican Henry McMaster. Corvette died in a hail of 
police bullets in 1997 after a 20-year life of crime, not far from the 
Byrnes Down neighborhood in West Ashley where he grew up. But it was his 
involvement in the slaying of a Greenville law enforcement officer that 
Benjamin is using - making it the second time in 12 years that Democrats 
have tried to taint McMaster as being soft on a criminal. The story begins 
in the early 1980s when Wilbur Rutledge Corvette Jr. agreed to testify 
about a cocaine ring in exchange for a lenient sentence.

He was originally wanted for a string of burglaries, but federal 
authorities became interested in another matter when he told them about a 
well-known Columbia car dealer who also was running a drug operation. The 
dealer, Newby Love, was already under investigation, so federal agents cut 
a deal with Corvette in exchange for his testimony in what became known as 
"Operation Jackpot." Corvette was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison 
but served only two. In 1984, McMaster, then U.S. Attorney for South 
Carolina, signed a letter on Corvette's behalf to the U.S. Parole 
Commission where he praised Corvette as "an instrumental witness" in the 
case, and asked that to be considered in determining the time of his release.

At the time, Corvette was seeking early parole. "It's a pretty standard 
part of a_ plea agreement to tell authorities how much (a witness) helps or 
doesn't help, and he was quite helpful," McMaster said Tuesday. The parole 
board denied Corvette's request, but he later was released by a federal 
judge, McMaster and other sources indicated. A few months after Corvette's 
release, he was indicted for the murder of state constable Valdon O. Keith. 
Keith was riding with a Greenville County sheriff's deputy and was shot and 
killed while they chased Corvette and Samuel Leroy Wodke, who had just 
robbed an Upstate convenience store. After his arrest, Corvette told police 
Wodke was the killer.

Prosecutors believed him, and in exchange for his testimony, dropped the 
murder charge and allowed Corvette to plead guilty to armed robbery.

He was sentenced to 21 years and served 11. Corvette's involvement in the 
Keith murder is now part of the political fight as his son and daughter, 
Scott and Judy Keith, are featured prominently in a TV ad for Benjamin in 
which they contend McMaster's intervention played a part in the death of 
their father. "We don't need Henry McMaster if he's going to put someone 
like that back on the streets," Judy Keith says in the 30-second 
commercial. Benjamin said the ad is designed to point out a flaw in 
McMaster as he campaigns to be the state's top prosecutor, specifically 
that he wrongfully stuck his neck out by writing a favorable letter for a 
hardened criminal. "This guy was a bad guy," Benjamin said Tuesday.

Benjamin said that although Corvette didn't shoot Keith, he is guilty by 
association. "The hand of one is the hand of all," he said. McMaster said 
Tuesday the ad is misleading because it fails to mention that a federal 
judge shortened Corvette's sentence. "The ad saying I arranged for his 
early release is 100 percent false," said McMaster, who is running a 
counter ad. Benjamin said the ad is truthful because any favorable word 
from a U.S. attorney about a felon is far-reaching in determining his state 
of release.

This is the second time Democrats have used Corvette as a political tool 
against McMaster. The first was in 1990 when McMaster was challenging 
Democrat Nick Theodore in the race for lieutenant governor.

At the time, Theodore said McMaster engineered Corvette's release. 
Corvette, who was in jail in 1990, denied Theodore's version. "I worked a 
deal, but it wasn't with Henry McMaster," he said, contending he got his 
own sentence reduced.
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