March 19, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina has decided to shell out $74,000 to resolve accusations that his travel and campaign expenditure went against the law of the state pertaining to moral values.

The Republican governor is accused of flouting 37 laws, counting inappropriately utilizing high-priced airplane tickets for a journey to Argentina where he observed the mistress he scandalously referred to as his soul mate.

Under a consent concord ratified on Thursday, Sanford does not own up guiltiness but does not challenge the indictments either.

The charges were leveled after examinations by the media into the governor’s profit-making travels and flights on state-owned planes. Sanford also is accused of indecently refund himself with campaign cash.

The State Ethics Commission ratified the accord on Thursday. Sanford is term-limited and will give up his job in January.

Also on Thursday, an adjudicator in Charleston confirmed the split-up of the Governor, which terminated his 20-year matrimony with wife Jenny.

Court records demonstrate that the Family Court Judge Jocelyn Cate, pronounced her verdict on Thursday. This was less than three weeks after the first lady of South Carolina emerged. She demanded the annulment and dissolution of her matrimony as a consequence of her husband’s deceitfulness.

The couple has four kids. Jenny Sanford has journeyed with her sons to their beachfront abode along the South Carolina coast.

Mark Sanford is the first incumbent governor to ever procure a divorce in South Carolina. The province became the very last in the nation to authorize matrimonial dissolution in 1949.