Attorney: OSD “not involved in any way”

A defense attorney has filed court papers asserting the Oconee County Sheriff’s Department played no part in the arrest of a man who was later found not guilty of all charges in a 2004 murder case. The man, Lexington County resident Lloyd Lash, has since filed a damage lawsuit. The case in the General Sessions Court involved the shooting death in 2004 of Seneca taxi cab driver Butch Roberts. It went to trial in 2011 when a jury found Lash not guilty of murder, attempted armed robbery and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Attorney Victor McDade, responding to Lash’s lawsuit last winter in the Oconee Common Pleas Court, filed an amended response yesterday in which he maintains the Sheriff’s Department had “no involvement in any way” in the investigation, arrest and prosecution. According to court documents, the Lash side has since amended its original complaint by naming the Seneca Police Department and one of its former officers, Rory Jones, as defendants.