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Inset: Attorney Mark Tinsley (@TheMarkTinsley/X). Background: One of the cars involved in the South Carolina road rage incident that attorney Mark Tinsley is accused of using to boost his public profile (WMBF).
A legal battle has erupted in South Carolina, where a lawyer faces accusations of crafting and spreading a misleading story about a fatal road rage incident. This lawsuit targets attorney Mark Tinsley, alleging he used the incident to bolster the family of the purported victim and his own public profile.
The case centers around a 2023 road rage altercation involving North Myrtle Beach entrepreneur Weldon Boyd, who allegedly shot North Carolina resident Scott Spivey in the back. The lawsuit claims that Tinsley manipulated details to portray Boyd and his friend, Kenneth Williams, in a negative light.
Boyd contends that Spivey was intoxicated, driving recklessly, and brandishing a gun. Boyd alleges that Spivey’s actions forced him off the road, leading him and Williams to follow Spivey for nearly nine miles while contacting 911. Boyd reportedly warned authorities he would shoot if Spivey wasn’t stopped, as reported by The Post and Courier.
During the 911 call, Boyd is heard saying, “He’s stopping,” according to recordings obtained by NBC affiliate WMBF. He allegedly exclaimed, “We’re about to have a f—ing shootout, this dude’s got a gun,” underscoring the tense situation.
Representing Spivey’s family, Tinsley has filed a wrongful death suit against Boyd and Williams. In response, Boyd has launched his own legal action, accusing Tinsley of disseminating confidential information to the media, potentially jeopardizing Boyd’s right to a fair trial in both civil and criminal proceedings, as outlined in his complaint.
The suit comes more than a month before a judge is slated to conduct a “Stand Your Ground” hearing to determine whether the wrongful death lawsuit against Boyd and Williams can proceed, The Sun News reports. Criminal charges have not been filed against either man, with local prosecutors choosing to not bring any forward in 2024.
“Following Tinsley’s widespread publication of selective materials obtained through litigation without regard for its non-public nature, and as a direct and proximate result of the intentional acts of Tinsley in publicizing private matters for his own personal aggrandizement and pursuit of establishing celebrity for himself, a media and social media firestorm erupted,” Boyd’s complaint alleges. “The public’s appetite for rooting out perceived public corruption was co-opted by Tinsley for Tinsley’s own personal purposes in self-aggrandizement and seeking celebrity status for himself.”
According to Boyd, Tinsley “wants to be a celebrity” and spends his “time and energy” promoting his public profile. He has attempted to create the “knowingly false yet sensational narrative” that Boyd did not shoot Spivey during the road rage incident in self-defense, which Boyd and authorities claim happened.
“Tinsley is not sued in his representative capacity as a lawyer, but solely as an individual having acted for his own personal benefit and interests, not as a tactical action in litigation and not in furtherance of the interests of any client,” Boyd’s complaint says. “Nothing Tinsley revealed through the media changed the actual facts, so Tinsley set about to manipulate the facts himself to show his media influence, his celebrity and what was perceived by the public as Tinsley’s own power, in furtherance of Tinsley’s self-aggrandizement.”
Boyd says Tinsley has taken to Facebook to try and advance his narrative, with posts and comments on the lawyer’s “personal” page featuring alleged photos of evidence and opinions to “promote his own celebrity and reputation among the public,” according to the complaint.
“There is no witness saying [Spivey] exited the truck and discharged his weapon,” Tinsley allegedly commented in May.
“Last time I checked, even if he committed a crime or several crimes … before he was trying to ‘run from’ the shooters, none of those crimes carry the death penalty,” another post from May says, according to the complaint.
It is not Tinsley’s first encounter with the legal spotlight in the Palmetto State. He previously represented the family of Mallory Beach, who was killed at age 19 while a passenger on a boat presumably driven by Paul Murdaugh. That lawsuit ultimately resulted in a settlement with the convenience store accused of selling alcohol to Murdaugh, who was also 19 at the time of the deadly 2019 crash.
Murdaugh was murdered a few years later by his father, high-profile lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted in 2023 of the 2021 deaths of his son, then 22, and his wife Maggie Murdaugh, 52. Tinsley testified at Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial that he had been seeking documents from the defendant relating to his admitted theft of millions of dollars from clients and his law firm.
Spivey’s family has called on authorities and the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office to reinvestigate the road rage case and circumstances surrounding his death. Their wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 2024.