The case resulted in Judge Hawkins overturning the convictions of five black South Carolina legislators and the judge suggesting that prosecutors failed to investigate a $22.4 million tax break because of campaign contributions to then-Gov. Carroll Campbell. It was cited as the reason the FBI has yet to reveal the interviews they had with John Edward Hurley, president of the Confederate Memorial Association, and, according to Hurley, is also the reason that a lawsuit against him in the D.C. Superior Court has been pursued for ten years as a cover-up.
Hurley said that the D.C. case against him was being financed by Richard Hines, a former member of the South Carolina legislature and a $50,000 political contributor. Hines also contributed $25,000 to the Council of Conservative Citizens to support the gubernatorial campaign of Sheriff James Metts.
Hines, executive vice president of the Chinese computer firm and Justice Department contractor Win Laboratories, is the commander of the Jefferson Davis Camp No. 305 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which is suing Hurley and has been represented by the Rutherford Institute. The institute is financing the Paula Jones case.
According to Hurley, the FBI interviews with him revealed that Hines and former Senator Robert Kohn were attempting to bribe a judge in a cocaine case. Both were members of the legislature and one, Senator Kohn, had turned FBI informant with Ron Cobb, a lobbyist subpoenaed by the South Carolina Senate subcommittee investigating the affair.
Hurley said that the FBI had failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the Hurley interviews by defense counsel Joel W. Collins Jr., who is representing the blacks who were the targets of the FBI sting. Hurley says that the FBI interviews occurred in the presence of his former attorney David Bartone.