South Carolina man received 15 years in prison, not 137
CLAIM: A video shows a defendant’s emotional reaction to being sentenced to 137 years in jail.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video shows a man named Jacob Morgan reacting to a judge’s finding at a preliminary hearing in 2015. Morgan was sentenced nine months later to 15 years in prison — not 137 — for setting a fire that killed his 14-month-old stepbrother, according to York County, South Carolina, court records and Morgan’s attorney.
THE FACTS: A popular video circulating online is spreading inaccurate claims about the length of Morgan’s sentence.
The video, which is from a 2015 preliminary hearing after Morgan’s arrest, shows his emotional reaction to a judge’s finding that there is probable cause to believe he committed the crimes. This meant that his case could proceed to trial, under South Carolina’s Rules of Criminal Procedure.
But the moment was mischaracterized in a video spreading widely on Facebook this week. A clip from the hearing, which is set to slow music, has a caption that reads, “man gets sentenced to jail for 137 years.” The video has been viewed more than 9 million times and received nearly 36,000 likes as of Thursday. It originally appeared on TikTok.
However, York County court records show Morgan received a total sentence of 15 years in prison in 2016, as well as five years of probation.
Morgan’s attorney, 16th Circuit Chief Public Defender B.J. Barrowclough, also confirmed to the AP that his client received far less time than the 137 years claimed in the video.
“There is no truth to the claim, it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Barrowclough said.
False claims about the length of Morgan’s sentence, as well as his crimes, have previously spread on social media. A TikTok post from early September alleged that he received 800 years in prison for a school shooting.
A longer video of Morgan’s reaction at the hearing was posted on YouTube by The Herald, a local newspaper in York County.
In 2015, Morgan, then 17, started a fire at a Rock Hill, South Carolina, mobile home that killed his 14-month-old stepbrother, the AP reported. Morgan pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, third-degree arson and unlawful neglect of a child, according to York County court records.
Morgan is projected to be released from prison in December 2022, according to his inmate file. Barrowclough explained that because Morgan’s crimes are defined as non-violent under South Carolina law, the time he is required to serve is lower than the sentence he received. Morgan will begin his probation after he is released, Barrowclough said.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
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