Former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh is expected to be given 2 years in prison Thursday.

Investors and Lexington County ratepayers he bilked out of billions of dollars have said the sentence should have been longer.

Marsh received an ample retirement package when he retired from the Lexington County holding company that owned SC Electric & Gas.

Marsh’s lawyers agreed with federal prosecutors to a longer sentence than the 18 months he had been expected to get.

With good behavior, the retired millionaire could be freed early.

Judge Mary Geiger Lewis will sentence Marsh at 10 am Thursday, Oct. 7, in federal court in Columbia.

Marsh has admitted to engineering a conspiracy to profit on the failure of his company’s ill-managed $10 billion nuclear fiasco.

SCANA’s minority partner in the abandoned nuclear project was taxpayer-owned Santee Cooper which sells power to Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative in Lexington County.

Another SCANA executive, former Irmo resident Stephen Byrne, and 2 Westinghouse executives have been indicted for criminal fraud.

“Even with a $5 million fine, Marsh has made a fortune on the VC Summer nuclear reactor construction debacle,” Tom Clements of Savannah River Watch said.

Clements represented the Friends of the Earth during the SC Public Service Commission’s long series of approvals of Marsh’s requests for billions in nuk rate increases.

Those increases cost ratepayers $2 billion.

“The court should consider a much higher fine as part of his restitution to ratepayers that he abused and ripped off for a decade,” Clements said. “If he fails to issue an apology to the court and to ratepayers, the judge should immediately double the financial punishment during his sentencing.

In the filing, Marsh agreed to testify before federal and state grand juries about those who joined him in lying to state regulators, federal officials and SCANA investors.