Yemassee councilman arrested at Beaufort hotel on warrants out of Savannah

BEAUFORT, S.C. (WTGS) — A Yemassee town councilman was arrested on multiple charges at a Beaufort hotel early Monday morning, according to a Beaufort Police Department report.

Charlie Simmons, 36, was booked at the Beaufort County Detention Center on a fugitive of justice charge from two warrants out of Savannah.

One warrant was for a felony charge of aggravated assault and the second was for a misdemeanor charge of simple battery.

According to Savannah Police Department warrants obtained by FOX28, the charges were from a fight on July 7 at Bar Bar in Savannah's City Market.

At 2:20 a.m., officers were called to the Home2 Suites by Hilton on Trask Parkway on a call about a man and woman throwing items around in a room. When they arrived, they said they found Simmons and the woman in the room.

The report said officers saw a "fresh bruise mark" on the woman's left cheek, but she told police it was an unrelated injury.

The report said Simmons told police "nothing happened and they were playing music loud".

Simmons refused to volunteer any additional information in regards to the incident but kept repeating that he paid good money for the hotel room and should be allowed to play loud music," the officer wrote in the report.

After running Simmons' information through dispatch, police learned he had an extradition warrant out of Savannah.

Before putting Simmons in the patrol car, the report said an officer searched him and found 11 bags of white powder totaling about 8.16 grams that "appeared to be alleged cocaine".

Nine individually packed baggies of the powder weighing about 6.72 grams were in a larger bag of his shorts pockets, a smaller single baggie weighing about 1.21 grams was in another pocket, and a baggie weighing about .23 grams was in his wallet, the report said.

The alleged drugs were sent in for testing.

According to information from the Town of Yemassee's website, Simmons was elected in November 2017. His term expires in November of this year.

Only Gov. McMaster has the authority to remove elected officials from office by executive order.

Simmons is scheduled to appear in court on September 20.