Greenville GOP ECs Asked for Clarification on Budget, Accurate Headquarter Records, Missing Minutes, and Equal Access to GCRP Resources, and They Won!
Remember the song by The Charlie Daniel’s Band, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia?” A portion of the song says,
Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard
'Cause Hell's broke loose in Georgia, and the devil deals the cards
And if you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold
But if you lose, the devil gets your soul.
The story of deceit and scams began in Georgia fifteen years ago and has followed the current GCRP State Executive Committeeman Jeff Davis all the way up to his tenure at GCRP.
In court documents obtained by The Times Examiner and easily available to anyone who cares to do their own research (https://timesexaminer.com/upload/Davis%20vs%20Taylors%20Bankruptcy-Order.pdf), it was found in May 2008 that Davis as a financial planner had created a scheme to buyout shares within a privately-held bank named Georgian Bank from an early investor who found himself in financial straits.
Davis took out a $5 million loan to buy the stock from this financially hit investor. In doing so, he reached out to a couple from Georgia, Naomi and Andrew Taylor whose funds were managed by Davis’s firm at the time. Davis was the best friend of Andrew’s son-in-law. The Taylors agreed to sign over $1 million assuming they were purchasing a portion of this stock in the bank.
What they did not know was they actually bought into a “holding company” that was Davis’s own account which made the Taylors the guarantor of his loan.
When the Taylors left town, according to Andrew in the court document, apparently the loan documents were signed by someone besides them, and that placed the financial burden of Davis’s loan on his “friends” the Taylors.
There is more, read the court document. The Taylors say their signatures were FORGED, not just once, but TWICE – once in May 2008 and the second in August 2008. Andrew claims, “Upon further inspection of the Commercial Guaranties, I noticed my purported signature on the May guaranty didn’t even match my purported signature on the August guaranty. Based on discovery of a second set of guaranties, the fact that I was out of the country when the second guaranty was purportedly signed, and my careful review of the signatures, I then knew for certain that I had not signed the Commercial Guaranties.”
In other words, when the documents were signed for the second time, there was proof that the documents had not been signed by them because Andrew Taylor was in Europe in the Alps with his daughter and a friend in August 2008, and Naomi Taylor was in southern Georgia with her daughter.
This act of purported forgery, according to the court document, made the Taylors unknowingly responsible for the whole $5 million loan that Davis took out himself. According to Andrew in the court documents, he made them the guarantors of the loan without their knowledge and bought stock in the bank. Davis eventually defaulted on the loan.
The bank ended up failing and the loan got called. FDIC went after the Taylors who finally found out what was going on and sued their supposed “friend” and “financial mentor” Davis, in which he lost the suit.
The court document states that Davis did not provide any credible explanation for why he would structure a transaction under which the Taylors are the guarantors of a $5 million note when their investment was only $1 million. When confronted under oath regarding the forgery, Davis pleaded the 5th. He refused to answer the questions.
“107. During a deposition in the FDIC-R action, Plaintiffs’ attorney asked Defendant whether he signed Plaintiffs’ names on the May 2008 and August 2008 loan guarantees without their authorization, whether he took the May 2008 loan guarantees to Georgian Bank to induce it to lend $5 million, and whether he took the August 2008 loan guarantees to induce Georgian Bank to renew the $5 million loan. Defendant asserted the Fifth Amendment in response to each of these questions. When asked at the deposition whether he was asserting the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating himself, Defendant asserted the Fifth Amendment in response.”
After the court battles with the Taylors, Davis’ certification as a Certified Financial Planner was permanently revoked by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standard:
“The Commission found that Mr. Davis’ conduct violated Rules 102, 103(d), 202, 401(a), 501, 606(b) and 607 of CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Rules 1.4 and 6.5 of CFP Board’s Rules of Conduct as well as Practice Standards 400-3 and 500-2, providing grounds for discipline under Articles 3(a) and 3(b) of CFP Board’s Disciplinary Rules and Procedures. In accordance with Article 4.4 of the Disciplinary Rules, CFP Board issued a Revocation of Mr. Davis’ CFP® certification. Mr. Davis’ revocation is effective as of August 14, 2014.”
So, Davis moved to SC because he knew SC dismisses debt judgments after 10 years while Georgia never dismisses debt judgments. We will leave the rest of the research to you as a responsible reader and bring this to recent events.
Why did we reach into the past? To show you a common, consistent thread of pattern.
On September 14th, 2023, out of 142 known Greenville County Republican organized precincts and more than the required 10%, fifteen concerned Greenville County Republican Party (GCRP) precinct executive committeemen (EC) invoked Rule 3b(1) to call a special meeting out of concerns of past mismanagement of Greenville County Republican Party documents, records, and procedures mostly under former chairman Jeff Davis’s tenure and the current arrangements of the GCRP headquarters.
Four basic motions were submitted and passed:
- A motion dealing with the current status of the GCRP budget.
- A motion to address records pertaining to the GCRP headquarters.
- A motion to discuss business meeting minutes.
- A motion to address equal access to GCRP resources for all members.
All motions passed with a few amended adjustments.
It appears that Davis is trying to hide something by not providing the necessary documentation that the ECs have been requesting, such as the budget, business meeting minutes, and the headquarters lease. He is also taking it up himself to ban legit GCRP members from the headquarters with no-trespass notices because they dare ask for what is expected and required by the rules.
In particular, the second motion regarding the headquarters, which was presented by former GCRP treasurer and current EC Jeff Magg, merited a long debate with a heated discussion between Davis's dedicated followers and those ECs wanting transparency and accountability.
The first part of the second motion was to provide the GCRP lease records pertaining to the headquarters. There has been confusion about the lease and what was in it. Some have said that the original agreement was $800 but somehow it immediately became $1,250 without a vote by the Executive Committee as a whole. Not only that, despite GCRP moving in during March 2022, somehow GCRP back paid for January, February, and about half of March when GCRP was not even there using the headquarters or its utilities. It was publicly challenged by Jeff Magg who was the current treasurer at the time and who soon stepped down thereafter. Since then, nothing has been officially provided to the body as evidence of this change or explanation, let alone the actual lease.
There was also a request by the original motion to provide the list of co-tenants who were sharing the same location at 2505 Wade Hampton Blvd. in Greenville, SC. The original motion wanted full disclosure of what, if any rents, they are paying by September 24th, 2023. Many ECs suspect that they are Davis’s and his wife’s businesses.
Many ECs voiced their concerns regarding insurance liabilities that could fall on GCRP. They were also concerned that other businesses sharing the same office are freeloading off GCRP to pay the lease. But the ECs who are dedicated followers of Davis outvoted to remove the requirement by 59 to 48. They claimed their concern was privacy issues.
Having done some research regarding other businesses sharing this same address, the following is what we have found so far.
We know that MySCGOP.com has an office there, Jeff is the CEO of that. And there used to be Travel Smiles Foundation, Inc. of which Davis’s wife was CEO. We also know that the Palmetto Kids First RV vehicle is parked there quite frequently, look it up on Google Maps’ Street View. On its website contact page (https://www.palmettokidsfirst.org/contact/), it lists the GCRP address but on SC State Business Entities search it has another address (https://businessfilings.sc.gov/BusinessFiling/Entity/Search).
Apogee Tax apparently has an office there too. At this special called meeting, Jeff Davis himself confirmed that he was the owner of Apogee, and the no-trespass notices that Davis sent out to four GCRP women had his Apogee Email on them with GCRP’s headquarters address.
This was enough of a concern that the ECs, who called the special meeting, wanted a list of all official occupants of the same GCRP headquarters, and rightly so. But this was turned down and stricken from the motion and amended by the Davis-supporting ECs who obviously did not want Davis exposed. It has to be assumed they are protecting Davis and his mismanagement of documents and transparency that he claims to be a champion of.
The question now is who is being paid the money for the lease. The motion as passed says that the lease agreement is between GCRP and 1776 Services, LLC. Guess who is the registered agent for this company? Yep, Jeff Davis himself. And guess what business name appears at the bottom of both MySCGOP emails and GCRP emails? That’s right, 1776 Services, LLC. See the image below.
So, not only are there quite a few businesses at this location that are related to Davis and his wife, and having been told there is more than what is listed here, we also have 1776 Services, LLC which is being paid by GCRP, a lease, if it exists, that was created while Davis was chairman.
Let’s summarize this, Jeff owns the company that GCRP is paying $1,250/mo. and obviously hosting his and his wife’s personal businesses at the same location. Upon which the ECs are assuming GCRP is paying the bill for all those businesses and liable for possible insurance claims? Davis is also wielding more power than GCRP by bullying and handing out no-trespass notices to GCRP women because they dare ask these important questions. Interestingly, there were no men who received a no-trespass notice.
This is another reason why the ECs were asking what other businesses were there, to explain why Jeff Davis thought he had the authority to hand out no-trespass notices at GCRP’s headquarters without the approval of the current chairman who is also a woman. Or is it inaction from the chairman, until she was forced by the second motion to take a stand, that shows who is really in charge at the headquarters?
This same pattern is seen way back in Georgia regarding his financial dealings with the Taylors and this forgery of documents pointed out by Andrew Taylor where Davis pleads the 5th. Davis owned a lot of businesses then too. The court grouped them all and referred to them as the “Apogee Companies.” You can’t help but notice the 1842 Capital, LLC in the list, it sounds very familiar – 1776 Services, LLC. You can make what you want with this, but patterns say a lot.
Back then, he owned a lot of businesses, and he was taken to court for the actions he took then. And here we are in 2023 with the same pattern and he has refused to show the lease agreement, minutes, budget, and a list of the tenants at the same location. Consistent patterns raise flags. The only problem today is he still has enough devoted followers of ECs that are helping and supporting him, but a whole lot of them are starting to see the light.
Many ECs and bystanders are wondering if a cult-like regime has set in. Many are confused as to why people would follow a man who has a history of deceitful manipulation and fraudulent behavior as Davis has on record for more than a decade.
We haven’t even mentioned other court cases that are publicly documented. Go to https://jeffdavisfirst.com. In this case, we will leave that up to the readers – do your own research. Davis has challenged this website for defamation and privacy issues and has sued over it. However, Judge Donald B. Hocker from Newberry of the Eighth Judicial Circuit has confirmed and ruled that all contents on that site are "truth" and not defamatory or in violation of his privacy due to the fact that it is pulling researched data from publicly available documents. See the image below or go to https://www.timesexaminer.com/upload/PIImageDisplay.pdf for actual document. SCDOR has done some investigating themselves. Check out for yourselves: https://www.timesexaminer.com/upload/Palmetto-Kids-First-Department-of-Revenue-Audit.pdf.
Due to the success of the special called meeting, these fifteen ECs and others who called the special meeting and pushed for these four motions can consider this meeting a win and should sing and end this column with …
“The devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat
And he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet
Johnny said, "Devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again
I done told you once … I'm the best that's ever been."
Enjoy some Charlie Daniels while you ponder on the contents of this article...
