Former SC legislator charged with defrauding legal clients

COLUMBIA — A former South Carolina legislator was charged Wednesday with defrauding legal clients, according to a federal indictment.

Former Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, a Democrat, resigned the North Charleston seat he held for seven years last September after a legal client filed a malpractice lawsuit against him. The claims in the lawsuit prompted a State Law Enforcement Division investigation and caused the state Supreme Court to suspend Pendarvis’ law license.

Nineteen months after the investigation opened, Pendarvis faces charges of identity theft, money laundering and wire fraud, according to a U.S. District Court filing. He declined to comment on the charges when reached by the SC Daily Gazette.

Pendarvis is scheduled to appear in federal court in Charleston on Nov. 18.

The indictment claims he defrauded multiple clients.

It accuses him of running a scheme to get money and property from his legal clients between at least January 2022 and April 2024. Pendarvis took on injury cases and other legal matters involving a loss so he could then negotiate settlements. He either didn’t tell clients he settled their cases or told them they received less than the amount he negotiated, according to the case presented to a federal grand jury.

State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis resigns amid accusations from a former client

Through this scheme, Pendarvis received at least $532,000, which he deposited in his law firm’s bank account and did not use to pay clients, according to the indictment.

Among those are four instances between June 8, 2023, and March 13, 2024, when the court filing claims Pendarvis cashed checks between $10,000 and $100,000 into his own bank account. Pendarvis’ four charges of wire fraud stemmed from those incidents, according to the filing.

On at least three occasions, Pendarvis also signed his clients’ names on settlement releases with insurance companies and filed court documents on the settlements without informing his clients, leading to his charges of identity theft, the indictment alleged.

Because Pendarvis got the money in his legal account unlawfully, two transfers of a combined $75,000 from that account to a savings account, owned by an unnamed person, constituted money laundering, according to the legal filing. Pendarvis transferred another $60,000 to a separate bank account operated by the same unnamed person, the filing claimed.

If convicted, Pendarvis would have to repay any of the money a judge or jury determined he received as part of the scheme, according to the filing.

The claims are similar to those in a lawsuit from former client Adrian Lewis.

Lewis claimed Pendarvis settled a lawsuit without his permission after largely ignoring Lewis throughout the case. Although Pendarvis sent Lewis two checks for a total of $6,667, Lewis didn’t realize the case was settled until he reached out to the sheriff’s office, he claimed in his April 2024 lawsuit. The settlement document included Lewis’ signature, which he claimed was a forgery.

Pendarvis tried to bribe Lewis with offers of cash and to pay off his mortgage after Lewis realized the case was settled, he claimed in the lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified amount of money.

That civil case is ongoing.

Though Pendarvis resigned from the House in September 2024, he still won re-election unopposed last November. He then declined to accept the win, triggering a special election.

Democrat Courtney Waters, a former Charleston County School Board member, won the seat in March.