Former SC minister wants to withdraw guilty plea

FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) — A former Conway pastor who pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from a Ponzi scheme in which people were bilked out of $2.5 million says he wants out of the plea agreement. The Myrtle Beach Sun News reported (http://bit.ly/Xgm6dO) that Archie Evans says his lawyer pressured him to make a deal with prosecutors that he didn’t fully understand. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rogers assigned a public defender to the case. He didn’t, however, vacate the guilty plea during the hearing in federal court in Florence. Evans pleaded in January to mail fraud and a charge of structuring financial transactions to evade the reporting bank deposits of more than $10,000. Evans is the former pastor of Tilly Swamp Baptist Church and faces 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.