By Mike McCombs
The Island News
The fallout continued Monday, Aug. 25, from the City of Beaufort’s release of more than 9,000 pages of unredacted documents in the fulfillment of a Freedom of Information Act request, as City Council voted unanimously during a special-called meeting to hire an outside law firm to investigate how and why the unintentional data release happened.
Immediately after the opening of the 2:45 p.m. meeting, Council voted to go into executive session, where they stayed for about an hour and a half. When they returned, Councilman Neil Lipsitz made a motion to “authorize Mayor [Phil] Cromer to take such action and execute such documents as are necessary to retain Haynesworth, Sinkler, Boyd PA to investigate and provide legal advice regarding the inadvertent production of sensitive and/or personal identifying information produced on July 29, 2025 in response to an FOIA request.”
The motion was seconded and approved unanimously – Councilman Mike McFee was not present, but voted via Zoom.
Mayor Cromer could not confirm that the results of the investigation would be made public.
“Until we complete the investigation, we don’t know,” he said. “As soon as we get all the information back from them, we’ll go forward, we’ll make a statement.”
Almost a month ago, in the process of fulfilling a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Autumn Hollis on July 29, the City mistakenly released information it was not required to release and that it should not have produced, potentially compromising the personal information and privacy of numerous individuals and causing the City to re-evaluate how it handles requests for information.
As reported by The Island News, whenAutumn Hollis submitted a FOIA request to the City of Beaufort in May, she and her husband, Kiel, were hoping to learn more about how the Beaufort Police Department handled the case of their daughter Emily.
The Hollis family contends their then-12-year-old daughter was a victim of human trafficking in February, while the Beaufort Police maintained initially that she was a runaway and now says any trafficking took place outside its jurisdiction.
When the Hollis family received the documents fulfilling their request from the City, they were stunned. In more than 9,000 pages of emails, not including attachments, of which there are many, almost nothing was redacted.
The City became aware of its mistake when City Councilman Josh Scallate asked for the same information Autumn Hollis had requested. When he got it, he soon discovered, as well, there were no redactions.
The documents included in the FOIA response contained the completely uncensored forensic interview and examination report for their daughter, as well as the report on another girl from a different incident, among many sensitive documents.
During the public comment section of Monday’s meeting Autumn and Kiel Hollis, as well as Autun Hollis’ father, were the only people to speak. The Hollises took the City to task.
“City Council had the power to step in, to ask the hard questions, and to defend the most vulnerable in our community. Instead, you remained silent. You accepted the narrative handed to you and allowed it to stand, even when it dismissed our daughter’s victimization. And when you finally spoke, your press release wasn’t about protecting victims — it was about protecting yourselves. That choice broke faith with every parent in this city and violated the very oath you swore to uphold,” Emily Hollis said.
“Our family will not stay silent, because this is bigger than our daughter. When police and city leaders control the narrative instead of telling the truth, victims lose their voice, families lose faith, and communities lose trust. What happened to our daughter is a warning: the narrative you choose matters — and in The City of Beaufort, you chose the wrong one.
“Now, we are asking you to do the right thing. Not only to investigate how these records were ever released through FOIA. But who has been distributing them. I have the evidence to prove these documents have not just been sent to me and Josh [Scallate]. Because until the families you’ve exposed are given answers, accountability, and protection, there will be no trust left in this city’s leadership.”
Some documents received in the FOIA request have shown up online on the Lowcountry Whispers’ TikTok account, though they have been deleted.
The Hollises are adamant they have not shared those documents and are convinced someone else has shared the FOIA response. Scallate denied that he had shared any documents when he visited the Hollis home late Sunday night and again on Monday on the phone with The Island News.
On Tuesday, Autumn Hollis wasn’t necessarily impressed with the City’s investigation, saying she’d have to wait and see if the trend of documents from the FOIA showing up online continued or if the investigators actually rooted out “who actually got these documents and how they were released outside the City.”
While the Hollis family is determining their next step, local developer Graham Trask has already taken his, filing a lawsuit on Thursday, Aug. 21 in the Court of Common Pleas of South Carolina’s 14th Circuit in an effort to get the City to release the documents from the original FOIA to “any individual seeking to verify if their personal information was part of the data breach.”
Mike McCombs is the editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
