COLUMBIA, S.C. — John Hardee, the former SCDOT commissioner, has had his name removed from a roadway near the Columbia Metro Airport that had been named in his honor.
Hardee, 72, was arrested on charges of prostitution in early August. Hardee worked with SCDOT, and had a roadway named after him, John Hardee Expressway.
That roadway has been renamed, “Columbia Airport Expressway.”
The SCDOT tweeted a picture of the new sign on Road S-378 in Lexington County between Platt Springs Road (SC 602) and Airport Boulevard (SC 302).
Hardee was the South Carolina Department of Transportation commissioner from 1998 to 2007 and 2014 to 2018.
Prosecutors said he texted an undercover officer posing as a prostitute and arranged a $40 sex act just hours after he was sentenced on August 7 to probation and house arrest but not jail time for obstructing a bribery investigation.
Hardee had faced up to 20 years in prison on an earlier obstruction charge, but received 45 days of home confinement and 18 months of probation. These charges were for telling someone to destroy emails before the FBI could read them in an obstruction case that's unrelated to the arrest for solicitation.
Hardee has not gone to trial yet for the solicitation charges or for violating probation.