A prosecutor took $352,000 to let corporations off a legal hook.

Prosecutor David Pascoe said he took $72,000 in a “corporate integrity agreement” with Lexington County-based SCANA, the holding company which owned SC Electric & Gas.

Pascoe said he also took:

• $30,000 from the Association for Justice, a trial lawyer group.

• $60,000 from AT&T.

• $100,000 from Palmetto Health, now part of Prisma Midlands.

• $90,000 from the University of South Carolina.

Pascoe told Judge Robert Hook he wants to give the money to the SC Ethics Commission, The State newspaper reported.

Attorney General Alan Wilson, who assigned Pascoe to the corruption probes, said the payoffs are illegal under state law.

“We had no direct knowledge of the corporate integrity agreements at the time Solicitor Pascoe executed them,” said Robert Kittle of Wilson’s office.

“Our office was not involved in his investigation but our office still paid most of the fixed costs for the operation of the State Grand Jury during his investigation.

“These corporate integrity agreements are unprecedented in South Carolina.

“We believe they were far in excess of the jurisdiction given by the court,” Wilson’s office wrote.

“Corporate integrity agreements themselves, each of which requires a financial ‘donation’ in exchange for non-prosecution, are deeply troubling.

“Whether intended or not, they give the appearance that the special prosecutor has a financial stake and a conflict of interest.”

Wilson’s letter to the court said he believes the agreements violate the state Constitution which says public funds may not be spent without an appropriation by law.

He said public funds such as those “donated” in these agreements must be deposited into the state general fund, not into an escrow account controlled by the Solicitor’s Office and kept there for years.

Pascoe told Judge Hood he had enough evidence for a state grand jury to indict for unlawful lobbying.

But, he said, it would have been hard to gather enough evidence to convince a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

“The alternative was to look the other way, which would have continued the cycle of apathy and lack of transparency,” Pascoe told Hood.

Pascoe has since been relieved after 6 years of probing corrupt lobbying and secret state lawmaker bribes.

Wilson has assigned Spartanburg County Solicitor Barry Barnette to take over the sentencing phase for Sen. John Courson, who represented the Irmo area, and perjury charges against Richard Quinn Sr., a longtime Republican political strategist.

Quinn’s firm paid a $2,500 fine and $3,000 in restitution for failing to register as a lobbyist.

Pascoe won guilty pleas from Courson, former House Speaker Bobby Harrell, former House Majority Leader Rick Quinn Jr. of Lexington and former House Majority Leader Jim Merrill.

Harrell, Merrill and Quinn Jr. resigned, pleaded guilty and received probation.