$400,000 BUDGET PROPOSAL WOULD PAY TO HIRE SIX PROSECUTORS

A one-time infusion of $400,000 to permit the South Carolina Attorney General’s OYce to hire six new prosecutors to fight insurance fraud has been approved by the Senate Finance Subcommittee. At present, the attorney general’s office has only one prosecutor, who handles about 600 cases a year.

Last year there was a proposal to assess the insurance industry $2.5 million to pay for the additional prosecutors, but that effort failed. “This is a fairly significant development in the insurance fraud effort,” Trey Walker, a spokesman for Attorney General Henry McMaster said. “Crime is a growth industry. Criminals don’t respect budget cuts.”