RALEIGH -- The chairman of the N.C. State Board of Elections said he regrets his vote last year to end an investigation into the campaign of Gov. Beverly Perdue without holding hearings or questioning witnesses under oath.
Elections Chairman Larry Leake spoke this week following the arrest of three people close to Perdue on felony charges related to illegal campaign contributions.
In August 2010, Leake sided with the board’s other Democrats in a 3-2 party-line vote to end the agency’s probe into 42 unreported flights on private aircraft provided to Perdue during her 2008 campaign.
The Democratic majority concluded there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing by the staff of the Democratic governor. They issued a $30,000 fine and closed the case.
Republicans criticized the decision at the time as a whitewash and sought the criminal investigation, which is still ongoing.
Leake, a Mars Hill lawyer who has served on the elections board for 18 years, said Wednesday new evidence uncovered by Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby suggested they could have dug deeper.
“At the time we made our decision we did not have a complete understanding of the situation as it related to Morganton and Burke County,” Leake said. “And, yes, as it relates to that part of the investigation, I have regrets.”
In February, Willoughby charged Robert Lee Caldwell of Morganton with a felony for allegedly deceiving Perdue’s campaign by hiding the source of money used to pay for a 2007 flight. A retired state magistrate, Caldwell is accused of soliciting a check for a campaign donation to Perdue from Morganton barber James Fleming.
The charge came after Willoughby followed up on a footnote in a 2010 report on Perdue’s unreported flights by elections board investigator Kim Westbrook Strach. Her staff found the invoice for the Dec. 8, 2007, flight was originally addressed to Fulenwider Enterprises, the family company of Morganton businessman Charles M. Fulenwider.
Records show Fulenwider, who owns fast-food restaurants, arranged several flights for Perdue and that he and members of his family have given at least $10,000 in donations to the governor’s campaigns. At the time of the 2007 flight, Fulenwider had already provided the maximum allowed $4,000 to Perdue for that election cycle.
The indictments filed Monday allege that Perdue’s campaign finance director, Peter Reichard, solicited another $32,000 in illegal under-the-table payments from Fulenwider. The money passed through a private company controlled by Reichard and then paid out as a secret salary to Juleigh Sitton, a Morganton lawyer then working full-time for Perdue’s campaign, according to the indictment.
Sitton later became director of the governor’s Western Office in Asheville, paid a $50,000-a-year state salary. She resigned that job Aug. 26. A spokesman for Perdue said at the time that Sitton intended to pursue other career opportunities and denied the resignation had anything to do with the ongoing investigation of the governor’s campaign.
Before the elections board ended its investigation of Perdue in Aug. 2010, their lead investigator went public with complaints that Leake had hampered her efforts.
Strach said the elections board chairman ordered her to end her probe without interviewing Zach Ambrose, the governor’s longtime chief of staff and campaign manager. Leake also took the unusual step of chartering a private plane at state expense so he could supervise Strach in person when she interviewed Trawick H. “Buzzy” Stubbs Jr.
Stubbs, a close family friend of Perdue who was the law partner of the governor’s deceased first husband, was among those arrested this week. Stubbs is accused of paying for more than $28,000 worth of private flights for Perdue through his law firm and then lying about it. Stubbs prepared documents in October 2008 that purported the flights had been contributed to the state Democratic Party when they actually had gone to Perdue’s committee, according to his indictment.
After the elections board closed its investigation without questioning Stubbs under oath, then N.C. Republican Party chairman Tom Fetzer said Leake’s micromanagement of Strach’s investigation amounted to obstruction aimed at limiting the political damage to Perdue.
Neither Fetzer nor Strach could be reached for comment Thursday. Willoughby reiterated this week that the governor is cooperating with his investigation and that she is not a target of his inquiry.
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