Jeffrey Benjamin pleads not guilty in $10B SC nuclear project failure case

A former top Westinghouse official pleaded not guilty Tuesday to numerous federal fraud charges related to the $10 billion failure to build two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina.

Jeffrey Benjamin, a senior former executive vice president for Westinghouse Electric Co., made his plea in an appearance before Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges at Columbia’s the federal courthouse. He was indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury in Columbia on multiple fraud charges.

In all, Benjamin faces 16 felony counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record.

After the plea, Benjamin, who lives in Florida, was released on a $25,000 personal recognizance bond.

Any trial in the case is months away.

Before the hearing, Benjamin’s lawyer, William Sullivan of Washington, D.C., told The State that federal prosecutors “have brought baseless charges against Mr. Benjamin, relying on a witness who has already admitted under oath to falsely accusing Mr. Benjamin.”

Sullivan added, “This case is an abuse of the grand jury process, and it will fail.”

The charges against Benjamin are “for his role in failing to truthfully report information regarding construction of new nuclear units at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant,” South Carolina’s Acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart said in mid-August.

Benjamin’s alleged cover-up of billions of dollars in losses at Westinghouse’s troubled nuclear plants in South Carolina and Georgia were part of a series of events leading to the company’s bankruptcy in March 2017, according to an 18-page indictment.

Benjamin’s actions also had an impact on the former utility company SCANA, the indictment said.

“The defendant’s misrepresentations and omissions, as well as the associated cover-up, resulted in billions of dollars in losses to (SCANA), ratepayers and investors,” the indictment said.

Benjamin, who was responsible for Westinghouse’s worldwide construction of nuclear reactors, is the fourth person to face criminal charges in connection with the SCANA scandal.

Three others — another former Westinghouse employee and two top former SCANA officials — have all agreed to plead guilty to various counts of fraud but have not yet been sentenced.

Those three — Westinghouse vice president Carl Churchman, SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh and SCANA executive vice president Stephen Byrne — have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and could be witnesses at any future trial of Benjamin, according to federal court records.

From 2008 to July 2017, Westinghouse was the major contractor for SCANA’s nuclear project, overseeing construction at the utility’s VC Summer site in Fairfield County, north of Columbia.

In July 2017, after nine years of positive press releases about how well construction was going at the nuclear site, SCANA announced it was quitting the project due to massive cost overruns and construction delays.

Shortly afterward, the FBI in South Carolina opened an investigation.