Officials investigating the cause of the huge blaze that reduced the $1.5 million beachfront home of a South Carolina judge to smouldering embers on Saturday morning have said they do not believe arson played a part.
“At this time, there is no evidence to indicate the fire was intentionally set,” State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief Mark Keel said in a statement about the fire at the home of Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein in the luxury Jeremy Cay gated community at Edisto Beach.
“SLED agents have preliminarily found there is no evidence to support a pre-fire explosion,” Keel added, suggesting his team believe the fire was the result of a domestic accident.
The chief said his investigation is still ongoing and urged the public to “exercise good judgement and not share information that has not been verified.”
Goodstein, 69, was out walking her dogs when the disaster unfolded, but her husband, former Democratic State Sen. Arnold Goldstein, 81, their son and another person were at home and had to escape the flames via an upstairs window and balcony.
The trio were subsequently rescued from a marshy area nearby by emergency services personnel in kayaks, who took them to hospital for treatment of the injuries sustained. One of the party had to be air-lifted due to the extent of their wounds.
The justice told reporters on Monday she was “alright” but otherwise said only that she was “happy to direct you to a court administrator” for further questions about the fire.
Her colleague, South Carolina Chief Justice John Kittredge, had told local media over the weekend that the blaze began with an “apparent explosion.”
The incident quickly attracted unfounded speculation that it might have been set deliberately by someone with a political motive, given that Judge Goodstein issued a controversial ruling against Donald Trump’s administration last month.
New York Democratic Congressman Daniel Goldman, for one, raised that concern in a post on X/Twitter in which he tagged White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and warned: “MAGA-world have been doxxing and threatening judges who rule against Trump, including Judge Goodstein… Will Trump speak out against the extreme right that did this??”
Miller responded angrily to the post, calling it “deeply warped and vile” and “libelous madness.”
The case presided over by Judge Goodstein in September concerned whether or not her state should hand over sensitive voter registration documents to the federal government.
The Department of Justice had requested that South Carolina officials turn over the personal data of more than 3.3 million voters, revealing their names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
The administration was seeking to compare the information with a separate database in order to root out alleged illegal immigrants it suspected were being unlawfully permitted to cast votes in state elections.
Judge Goodstein reportedly received multiple death threats after ruling in favor of the plaintiff – local voting rights activist Anne Crook – a decision that put her at odds with Trump and her state’s Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who said the circuit court was “wrong” to place itself in the way of the government and filed an emergency petition to overturn the verdict.
The South Carolina Supreme Court duly sided with McMaster, dropping Goodstein’s temporary restraining order in a six-page opinion on September 11.
