Ex-GOPer Accused Of Threatening Wife Says Cough Medicine Made Him ‘Erratic’

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A former official with the South Carolina Republican Party said an improper dose of cough medicine was to blame for an incident in which he refused to let his wife out of their car, the Charleston City Paper reported Saturday.

Todd Kincannon, an attorney who briefly served as the executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party in 2010, allegedly refused to let his wifeout of their car after the couple got into an argument at a work function Thursday night, according to a police report obtained by the newspaper.

A Lexington County Sheriff’s deputy responded to a “possible domestic incident” at about 10:21 p.m. at Kincannon’s Columbia, S.C. home, according to the report. The report stated Kincannon’s wife, Ashely Suzanne Griffith, told the deputy there had been an altercation in a Chick-fil-A parking lot on the drive home.

Griffith told the deputy that she asked to get out of their car after her husband began screaming at her, according to the police report. The report stated that Griffith said she hit her husband in the arm several times because he grabbed her to prevent her from exiting the car. She also told the deputy that Kincannon had threatened to kill himself if she left the vehicle.

Kincannon denied both grabbing his wife and threatening to kill himself, according to the report. A sheriff’s department spokesman told the newspaper that Kincannon was ultimately not arrested or charged with any crime.

Kincannon later told the Charleston City Paper that the dispute happened because he’d taken an improper dose of Benzonatate, a medicine he’d been prescribed to treat a cough.

“Basically, I went completely crazy after taking it,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t even remember all of it. My wife called 911 because she was worried about me and my behavior was way out of character and erratic, and she was afraid for her safety and mine.”

Kincannon is best known for his incendiary comments on Twitter, including calling House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a “crabby cunt” back in 2011. He drew attention to himself as recently as last fall by suggesting anyone who contracted the Ebola virus be executed. The former GOP official no longer appears to have a Twitter account, however.

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