BLYTHEWOOD – A check that was presented to and rejected by the Blythewood mayor and Manor officials on Sept. 11 has helped fuel an investigation into missing Manor reservation payments by the Richland County Sheriff’s department. A story about the Sept. 11 incident appeared in the Sept. 18 edition of The Voice.
The story began with Michelle Layman, the wife of Manor Director Fred Layman, taking a check to the Manor and ended, she said, with her being prohibited from leaving, having a medical emergency and being transported to a local hospital where she was treated and released three days later.
Fred Layman told The Voice that the check his wife took to the Manor represented funds he had previously received via Cash App from a cheerleading coach for a space she rented in the Manor for practices for her cheer team. He said he had failed to turn the money in on time due to being on medical leave from his job.
Fred Layman said the check was signed but not filled out because he wasn’t sure how much was owed.
Two days later, after reading the story in The Voice, Ashanti Thames of Palmetto Storm Cheer called The Voice to say she was the coach who had sent money to Fred Layman’s Cash App for the check that Layman’s wife took to the Manor.
Thames went on to say that she is now learning from town hall officials that some of the more than $10,000 she has paid out over the last eight months for her cheerleading team’s practice sessions at the Manor has not been accounted for.
In an interview with The Voice, Thames described a patchwork of Cash App transfers, personal checks and cash payments she says she made to Fred Layman beginning in late October of last year. She said her cheer team practiced most Tuesdays and Thursdays and occasionally on Saturdays from the last week in October, 2024, through the spring and a few times during the summer. The program officially ended Aug. 30.
“Fred paid the Town out of his pocket. I Cash App’d the money to him, and he’d apply it to my reservations,” Thames said.
Town officials now say that not all of those payments were credited to the cheer coach, and they say they are still not sure if any payments are missing.
The Arrangement
According to Thames, she launched the competitive squad after branching off from a local sideline program. Fred Layman, whose daughter was on Thames’s cheer team, suggested the team practice at the Manor, according to both Thames and Fred Layman. She said she paid $100 per hour for practices for her cheer students, but that after Fred Layman’s daughter dropped out of the program a couple of months later, the fee went up to $150 per hour.
Thames said she paid $300 per day on the two weekdays ($600 per week) and $600 for longer four-hour Saturday sessions. On weeks with Saturday practice, she estimates she was out of pocket about $1,200.
She said she learned last week from Town officials that she should have been paying $100 per hour for her cheer sessions, not $150.
Thames said her payments over the eight months to the Manor included: Cash App transfers to Layman totaling $2,950 (11 transactions); more than $4,000 in cash to Layman; $1,000 in cash to another Manor staffer, and $400 in checks to Layman and about $1,600 in checks to the Town.
While she did not receive receipts, Thames has provided The Voice with bank screenshots and Cash App records documenting the payments. She said the amounts she paid include three separate $500 deposits tied to contracts she signed with Fred Layman over the course of the eight months, but that one of the contracts is now “missing.” Fred Layman confirmed the missing contract to The Voice. Thames said none of the $500 deposits have been returned to her by the Town.
“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Thames said. “I kept looking at my bank account, trying to figure out why the checks I had given were never deposited,” she said.
Cancellations and overcharges
Beyond the missing payments, Thames said frequent last-minute cancellations by the Manor compounded her losses. She said she prepaid for February and March, but the team was able to practice only once in February and twice in March due to cancellations she was told were due to conflicting events, such as a town hall meeting and a baby shower.
She said she has since learned from town officials that the Manor does not cancel paid reservations but, instead, moves users to different time slots. Thames disputes that this happened consistently for her team and says parents threatened to pull their athletes because the schedule became erratic.
Where Things Stand
Council members have told The Voice that Driggers has shared little with them about the investigation of both Fred Layman’s handling of the cheerleading teams’ payments and Mayor Sloan Griffin’s alleged involvement with comping the use of the Manor (partially or totally) for friends. They say Driggers and the attorney have assured them that Griffin would not be involved in the investigation concerning the missing cheer payments.
Thames, however, told The Voice that Griffin has been in contact with her via phone several times since the Sept. 11 incident at the Manor concerning her payments. She said Griffin was also included in a meeting with her, Driggers, and the town attorney concerning her missing payments.
Thames said she provided town officials with Cash App logs and bank images, and is helping to reconstruct a day-by-day practice ledger so the Town can calculate a refund.
By her rough estimate, Thames said the Town owes her at least “$2,000 – $3,000” for overcharges, her payments that she said were never turned in to the Manor, and her payments for canceled sessions. She expects that figure could rise as more dates are reconciled. She said she does not know how many of her payments were recorded with the Town.
Thames provided The Voice with text messages from Fred Layman promising to repay any money that he owed her.
Thames said Palmetto Storm Cheer is “out of money” because of the losses.
“You all owe me,” Thames recalled telling Town officials. “My program is out of money because of this.” Thames said she’ll keep supplying documents until every dollar is accounted for.