A legal drama unfolds in South Carolina, where a lawyer faces a lawsuit for allegedly crafting and spreading a false story about a fatal road rage incident. The suit claims the lawyer’s actions served both the family of the alleged victim and his personal reputation.

The lawyer in question, Mark Tinsley from Allendale, is accused of tampering with the narrative surrounding a 2023 road rage episode. During this incident, Weldon Boyd, a businessman from North Myrtle Beach, allegedly shot Scott Spivey, a resident of North Carolina, in the back. Boyd was accompanied by his friend, Kenneth Williams, at the time.

Boyd contends that Spivey was intoxicated, driving recklessly, and brandishing a pistol. Boyd alleges that Spivey’s abrupt braking forced him off the road. According to The Post and Courier, Boyd and his passenger Williams reportedly pursued Spivey for nine miles while contacting 911. Boyd allegedly warned that he would shoot if Spivey wasn’t stopped by authorities.

In 911 audio obtained by NBC affiliate WMBF, Boyd is heard saying, “He’s stopping,” and threatening a shootout while claiming Spivey was armed. “We’re about to have a f—ing shootout, this dude’s got a gun,” Boyd allegedly stated.

Representing Spivey’s family, Tinsley has initiated a wrongful death lawsuit targeting Boyd and Williams. In response, Boyd has filed his own lawsuit, accusing Tinsley of leaking “non-public material” to the media, which he argues could jeopardize Boyd’s right to a fair trial in any related legal proceedings, as detailed in his legal complaint.

This legal battle emerges just weeks before a judge is set to conduct a “Stand Your Ground” hearing to decide if the wrongful death lawsuit against Boyd and Williams should continue, according to The Sun News. To date, local prosecutors have opted not to file criminal charges against either man in this 2024 case.

“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.