By John Monk
The State
COUMBIA, S.C. — Longtime S.C. Department of Corrections director Bryan Stirling will become interim U.S. Attorney for South Carolina , according to multiple sources.
Stirling, 55, will start his new job on Monday, replacing former U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs , who left earlier this year, and current interim U.S. Attorney Brook Andrews, sources said. .
Sometime in the near future, Stirling is expected to be formally nominated for permanent U.S. attorney by President Donald Trump , sources said.
As interim U.S. attorney, Stirling will oversee an office of federal prosecutors and other attorneys in offices in Columbia and around the state who work with federal agencies such as the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security and others that investigate federal crimes. Its attorneys also represent the federal government in civil litigation.
Prosecuting criminals will be quite a change for Stirling, who has a reputation as a mild-mannered and unflappable agency head whose charter for the last 12 years has been to keep custody of the state’s offenders once they’ve been sent to prison.
As the state prison director nominated by former Gov. Nikki Haley in 2013, Stirling is the top executive in a far-flung state prison archipelago of 21 institutions with 5,000 employees and 16,500 inmates including 25 people on death row in South Carolina, as well as one man on California’s death row sentenced to death in both states.
In recent years, Stirling has dealt with one of the largest prison riots in recent U.S. history, correction officer corruption, re-instating executions including by firing squad and coping with longstanding problems with drone infiltration and contraband cellphones. He also worked to improve conditions for mentally ill inmates and to help make sure released inmates were better able to become productive citizens.
“Under Stirling’s leadership, SCDC instituted deep, effective reentry programming and brought the state to have the lowest recidivism rate in the nation, partnering with other state agencies and outside nonprofits to give inmates real second chances of a new life,” the prison system said in a statement released late Thursday morning.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina that Stirling is going to is one of the state’s flagship crime-fighting agencies.
In the last 10 years, that office has overseen numerous high-profile criminal prosecutions, including financial crimes cases against Alex Murdaugh and his accomplices Cory Fleming and Russell Laffitte; the executives at the former SCANA power company who caused the collapse of a major South Carolina nuclear project; and the death penalty trial of the Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof.
Currently, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating alleged corruption among North Charleston city officials. The office also is investigating and a state lawmaker, Rep. R. J. May III, R- Lexington, whose computers and electronic devices were seized last summer by Homeland Security officials.
Stirling, a Boston native, is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and is a 1996 USC Law School graduate. His mother’s side of the family, he has said, includes numerous police officers, including a Boston Police Department chief of detectives.
Before moving into Haley’s inner circle, Stirling was a deputy attorney general under Attorneys General Henry McMaster and Alan Wilson . In the attorney general’s office, Stirling wore a number of hats, including prosecuting some 40 criminal domestic violence cases. He also served as a liaison to the Legislature on a wide range of criminal justice and budget issues.
Stirling joined the attorney general’s office in 2006,. Before that, he was in private practice, helping to represent numerous defendants in federal criminal cases.
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