GREENVILLE, S.C. – A county prosecutor who had received death threats signed a gun out of the sheriff's evidence room only to have it stolen a month later.

Though the events happened in 2013, the gun never was recovered. And Walt Wilkins, 13th Judicial Circuit solicitor for Greenville and Pickens counties in South Carolina, is facing repercussions in his bid for re-election Tuesday.

“I was very concerned about my ability to successfully prosecute that case," said Lisa Parrish, a former assistant solicitor assigned the case while working for Wilkins. “The gun in question, again if I recall, was an essential piece of the probable cause for the officers to get inside the car and search it."

Signing out evidence in a pending case can be problematic because it affects the chain of custody in a case, according to Wilkins' political adversaries.

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Wilkins, who didn't want to buy a gun because of the expense and what he considered a temporary need for it, said he consulted with Greenville County's sheriff at the time, Steve Loftis. The prosecutor declined an offer to assign a deputy to him for protection.

After he shared specifics about the threats, Loftis told Wilkins – who has an annual income of $141,354, according to the State Ethics Commission – that he could borrow a gun from the evidence room, Wilkins said. A month after Wilkins took possession of the Sig Sauer P938 pistol, he reported the gun stolen from his unlocked SUV parked outside his Greenville home.

The Greenville News learned about Wilkins' actions through an anonymous tip and verified the information through interviews with Wilkins, incident reports, property records and chain-of-custody reports.

Firearms charges in that pending case, in which suspects had been accused of drug trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm, eventually were dismissed although the defendants were convicted on other charges.

Wilkins was the U.S. attorney in South Carolina for two years before his election to solicitor in 2010. He is facing a general election challenge from lawyer Lucas Marchant, who entered this year's race as an independent after Wilkins agreed to become a Republican gubernatorial candidate's running mate while still seeking his third term as solicitor.

That candidate lost in the Republican primary to incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster, who became South Carolina's governor when Nikki Haley resigned to become the Trump administration's United Nations ambassador.

In South Carolina, a candidate can qualify for a general election ballot after the political party primaries by gathering registered voters' signatures on a petition. Marchant was required to get 10,000 signatures; he submitted more than 12,000 in July and the state Election Commission certified him as a petition candidate in mid-August.

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The Wilkins-Marchant race is the first contested election for the solicitor's office since 1990.

Greenville and Pickens counties are heavily Republican areas in the northwest corner of the state. About 3 of 5 voters in the counties in 2016 chose Donald Trump to be president.

In October, Marchant requested an injunction to have an anonymous Facebook page titled Democrats for Marchant pulled down. As of Friday, it was still live.

Parrish, who now lives in Pennsylvania, has donated $250 to Marchant's campaign. Her involvement in the case was mentioned in the anonymous email about the incident.

Wilkins said Wednesday that he assumed other personnel already had verified that the gun he borrowed had no ties to a pending case, contending that the Sheriff's Office was responsible for verifying the weapon's status.

"Had I known we had a pending charge on this gun, I probably wouldn’t have taken it," Wilkins said. "They probably said, 'It was a forfeited gun, so let's give him that forfeited gun.' Loftis should have said, 'Wait a second, hold on. Let’s do more research on it.' "

Later Wednesday, Wilkins clarified his comments after he said he had found notes from the 2013 case. He determined that the gun belonged to a pending case but said he also determined at the time that it was still OK to borrow it.

Pictures and a serial number would have sufficed to prosecute that case rather than having the firearm itself, he said.

Marchant, now in private practice, worked in Wilkins' office when the incident occurred.

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Former prosecutor Bob Ariail, Wilkins' predecessor, said signing out evidence in a pending case to a solicitor was never done in his 15-year tenure.

"That would not have been an approved procedure in my office nor would have I ever done that," he said. "I’ve never known that to happen. It would be real strange.

"I don’t know why you’d take evidence out for personal use on a pending case," said Ariail, who contributed $1,000 to Marchant in September. "Then you’re in the chain of custody. You’d have to be presented in court as a witness if there was a trial."

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Wilkins acknowledged that not having evidence in a prosecutor's possession is a law-school basic. He graduated from the University of South Carolina Law School in Columbia in 1999; Marchant graduated from Mississippi College Law School in Jackson in 2004, according to South Carolina Bar Association records.

Lamar Cureton, the gun's original owner, said the pistol had been stolen from his vehicle before being found with the drug-trafficking suspects. He waited until the completion of that case before inquiring about the return of his $750 firearm.

"They said, ‘Oh, yes, we got your gun.’ I get there, and they say they had some good news and some bad news," Cureton said. "They said, ‘The good news is we found your gun. The bad news is we can’t find the gun.’ ”

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Wilkins described the disclosure of what happened in 2013 as a “hit job” from his opponent just a week before Election Day. Marchant said he had nothing to do with the anonymous tip.

“I don’t think there’s a story here, honestly,” Wilkins said. “It doesn’t seem like much of a story other than that the sheriff gave me a gun (to borrow temporarily).”

Wilkins bought his own gun after the firearm was stolen from his vehicle, he said.

Follow Daniel J. Gross of The Greenville (S.C.) News and Kirk Brown of the Anderson (S.C.) Independent Mail on Twitter: @DanieljGross and @KirkBrown_AIM

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