Former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh will serve no more than 2 years in prison.

Marsh was sentenced to 10 years in prison on state fraud charges Monday.

SC Judge Mark Hayes reduced it to 2 years as part of a plea agreement with SC Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office.

Marsh will serve the sentence concurrently with a 2-year federal sentence.

On top of a $2 million federal fine, Marsh will also pay another $5 million he should not have received due to his criminal conduct, SC Attorney General Alan Wilson said.

This money will be earmarked for an existing program that helps qualifying low income ratepayers with utility bills through the SC Office of Economic Opportunity.

He was sentenced in state court in Spartanburg.

He is to report to federal prison in Butner, NC, in December and be eligible for release in December 2023.

He will not be eligible for early release in the federal prison system, US Attorney Rhett DeHart said.

Marsh pled guilty to a State Grand Jury indictment for criminal fraud costing investors and ratepayers more than $2 billion.

He and other executives collected millions of dollars in bonuses and retirement pay in the failure of a $10 billion twin nuclear reactor project.

He had promised the reactors would save ratepayers and the Lexington Countybased utility billions of dollars in electricity costs.

Marsh was the CEO and Chairman of the Board of SCANA, a former Fortune 500 holding company in Cayce that had 11 subsidiaries including SC Electric & Gas.

SCANA officials promised to do something that had not been done in the United States since the late 1970s – build a new nuclear power plant, with the promise that it would start a nuclear renaissance and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Hundreds of ratepayers have criticized SC lawmakers for passing the Base Load Review Act to finance the project.

That act allowed SCANA to finance the project with increased rates before the reactors ever produced a kilowatt of electricity.

But for this act, SCANA could not bill customers until a power plant produces electricity.

The BLRA also allowed SCANA to obtain almost a 10% profit on each increase, giving bonuses to Marsh and other executives.

The Public Service Commission was responsible for approving 9 SCANA project rate increases.

Wilson said. “While this criminal proceeding is not meant to repay the customers who spent billions of dollars on nuclear plants that were never finished, we hope they take some comfort from the fact that the former CEO of SCANA has pled guilty for his role in this debacle.

“A public utility and its officers must serve the public.”