State prosecutors have dismissed Billy Oswald’s criminal charges after the former attorney and Lexington County Council member died in June.

He died following a long illness, said his attorney, Jake Moore Sr. Oswald, a West Columbia resident, was 78.      

When he died, Oswald was facing grand jury charges in two Lexington County cases. One alleged he’d fraudulently obtained financial assistance from a Covid-19 program. In the other, a former client accused him of assaulting her.

Oswald maintained his innocence and died before the 2024 cases were resolved

“Mr. Oswald was never convicted of any crime,” Moore said in a written statement to the Chronicle. He added that his client “looked forward to the opportunity for a fair and impartial trial, confident that the truth would ultimately clear his name.”

Oswald, however, lost his South Carolina law license in October. The state Supreme Court said he’d resigned his legal practice after acknowledging that a state disciplinary body could prove the allegations against him.

Oswald’s court troubles came after his decades as an active member of political, legal and veteran circles in the Midlands.

Born in Columbia in 1948, Oswald had been a member of the Army Reserve at Fort Jackson in his 20s, according to his obituary. It said he obtained his law degree from the University of South Carolina, where he’d played baseball during college.

He served in the Lexington County Council from 1978 to 1982, including as council chairman, and launched multiple failed bids for the S.C. House and for Congress. He’d also been board chairman of Lexington Medical Center.

In a social media post, the American Legion Post 79, located in West Columbia, paid tribute to his contributions as a longtime post commander. It also acknowledged his moral and financial support to the post’s American Legion baseball team. 
“He kept the post and the baseball team going,” said Carlos Duque, the current post commander, who succeeded Oswald. “He has done a lot of good things.”

But in January 2025, Oswald was arrested on misdemeanor charges of assault and battery as well as obscene behavior. They stem from a woman’s complaint that Oswald groped her and exposed himself to her at his law office a few months earlier. The case was prosecuted by the 11th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

The complainant, who said she’d met with Oswald to potentially rehire him as an attorney, sued him in Lexington County.   

Oswald was again arrested in April 2025 on charges of forgery, a computer crime and obtaining a signature under false pretenses. The S.C. attorney general’s office, which handled the case, alleged that Oswald received Covid-19 assistance funding for his law firms after submitting fraudulent information to the state.

“He was a good and honorable man,” said Moore, his attorney. “It would be both unjust and disgraceful to malign his character after his passing.”

The solicitor’s office dismissed their charges a week after he died, court records show. The attorney general’s office followed suit in early July.