The former Chester County animal control director has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug violations, according to South Carolina prosecutors and court records.
Ace Donovan Hembree pleaded guilty Friday at the Chester County Courthouse to two counts of meth trafficking and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, according to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office. Hembree was involved in a methamphetamine drug dealing scheme that also involved the county’s former top elected official.
Hembree was indicted by the S.C. State Grand Jury.
Hembree had past convictions for drugs and was arrested in September 2020 with more than 260 grams of meth and a weapon, prosecutors said Friday, and in previous court hearings. Hembree was involved in large scale meth trafficking during 2020 before he was arrested, prosecutors said.
Judge Eugene Griffith sentenced Hembree, according to a statement from Johnny James, assistant attorney general.
Hembree was involved with former Chester County Supervisor Kenneth “Shane” Stuart in the drug scheme, prosecutors said. Stuart was the top elected official in Chester County from 2015 until September 2020 when he, Hembree and a third person were charged in the drug deals.
Stuart had hired Hembree to the animal control job, James said.
Stuart used his official county truck with the Chester County seal on it to move meth because the defendants believed the official truck driven by the county’s top official would be less likely to be stopped by police, James said.
The drug deals went on through 2020 until arrests were made in September 2020, James said.
Stuart is serving a sentence of at least seven years after pleading guilty in October 2022, according to prosecutors and records.
Chester County is a mostly rural area of around 32,000 people between Rock Hill and Columbia.