A lawyer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with a history of sexual misconduct has been disbarred by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
In its Aug. 12 opinion, the court made lawyer Jacob Leon Parrott’s disbarment retroactive to June 5, 2018, the day that he was arrested and charged with indecent exposure for exposing his genitals and masturbating in public.
Parrott later entered an Alford plea, under which a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction. He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, suspended to 12 months of probation and payment of $168.75 in court costs.
The Myrtle Beach Sun News, CBS 17 and WMBF reported on the decision over the Labor Day weekend.
The South Carolina Supreme Court cited two matters involving similar behavior in Parrott’s disciplinary history. In 1997, he was suspended for four months after he entered an Alford plea to a charge of simple assault and battery for pulling down a woman’s bathing suit three years earlier. The court also noted that he was previously accused of trying to pull off another woman’s bikini bottom in 1989 but was not prosecuted for that offense.
In 2017, the court again suspended Parrott for nine months after he was arrested and charged with voyeurism for using his cellphone to take photos up a woman’s skirt in a grocery store. In that incident, he also failed to notify the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel of his arrest within the required 15 days.
According to his South Carolina Bar member profile, Parrott graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1984. He is listed as in not good standing.
