Earle Elias Morris, Jr. (July 14, 1928;

Pickens, South Carolina Pickens, formerly called Pickens Courthouse, is a city in Pickens County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 3,126 at the 2010 census. Pickens changed its classification from a town to a city in 1998, but it was not reported to the ...

– February 11, 2011) was an American Democratic politician, who served in both houses of the

South Carolina General Assembly The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and t ...

. Morris served as the 81st

Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina The lieutenant governor of South Carolina is the second-in-command to the governor of South Carolina. Beyond overseeing the Office on Aging and the responsibility to act or serve as governor in the event of the office's vacancy, the duties of th ...

1971–1975, elected on a ticket headed by

John C. West John Carl West Sr. (August 27, 1922 – March 21, 2004) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 109th governor of South Carolina from 1971 to 1975. From 1977 to 1981, he was the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia ...

, the outgoing lieutenant governor. West and Morris defeated, respectively, the

Republicans Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

Albert Watson and

James M. Henderson James Marvin Henderson (March 28, 1921 – October 31, 1995) was the founder of the Henderson Agency. Henderson founded the eponymous agency in 1946. The agency was described by ''The New York Times'' as "one of the bigger agencies in the South ...

. In 1976, Morris was elected Comptroller General by the General Assembly on June 16, 1976, to fill the unexpired term of outgoing Comptroller General J. Henry Mills; he served in that office from 1976 to 1999. Morris was a co-founder and director, later chair, of Carolina Investors, a financial company that provided

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with cor ...

ing services as well as making high-risk loans to people with low credit scores. In the 1990s, the company was taken over by HomeGold, which expanded Carolina Investors'

subprime lending In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subpri ...

. When HomeGold began to lose money, it borrowed from deposits made to Carolina Investors and eventually failed in 2003, resulting in 12,000 people reportedly losing an estimated $278 million. Several corporate officers, including Morris, were sentenced to prison for their roles in the fraud. Morris was convicted on 22 counts of

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in los ...

, and sentenced to 80 years total; the sentences were

concurrent Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to: Law * Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea'' * Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...

rather than consecutive, so the sentence was ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' four years. He was released in March 2010 due to a terminal illness. Morris died on February 11, 2011, at the age 82, of

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that sur ...

Notes

1928 births 2011 deaths Lieutenant governors of South Carolina Democratic Party members of the South Carolina House of Representatives Democratic Party South Carolina state senators Deaths from cancer in South Carolina Deaths from prostate cancer in the United States People from Pickens, South Carolina South Carolina comptrollers general South Carolina politicians convicted of crimes 20th-century South Carolina politicians {{SouthCarolina-politician-stub