Fact check: Attacks over a candidate’s house are dominating an NC Senate race
The issue: On more than one occasion, North Carolina Republicans have accused Democrat JD Wooten of fraud. Wooten, an Air Force veteran, used a Veterans Affairs-backed loan in 2019 to buy a house outside the district where he’s now running. The deed of trust Wooten signed required that he occupy the residence for a year, but Wooten moved out about eight months later. Republicans have said this shows Wooten is “dishonest and unfit for office.”
Why we’re checking this: Democrats need to win five additional seats in the North Carolina Senate to gain a majority. If Wooten wins the Senate District 24 seat, which is now held by retiring Republican Sen. Rick Gunn, Democrats are one closer to a majority.
Wooten’s Republican opponent, Alamance County Commissioner Amy Galey, sent a mailer in late July accusing Wooten of committing fraud on his VA mortgage loan. In response, Wooten’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter, saying the statements were defamatory.
“She has falsely accused me of a federal crime with zero backing up of that and put it in mail and perpetuated this conspiracy for all to hear,” Wooten, an attorney and second-time candidate for the seat, told The News & Observer. “They’re attacking my credibility and attacking my character. People trust veterans, and they want people not to trust them. Part of the mail campaign is to make it look like or appear that I have somehow deprived fellow veterans of something.”
Galey’s campaign has continued to send mailers with the same claims, said Republican political consultant Nathan Babcock.
The accusations of fraud and defamation made us want to take a closer look, especially since many voters are seeing these claims.
What you need to know:
When Wooten ran for Gunn’s seat the first time around, he lived at a McLeansville rental house inside district lines, according to a rental agreement provided by the North Carolina Democratic Party.
But five months after the 2018 election, Wooten relocated to a Greensboro home outside the district and secured a VA-backed loan to pay for it. Records of the sale show lender First Bank required Wooten use the home as his primary residence for at least a year after that. When he bought the house, he wasn’t planning on running for the seat again and had moved outside of district lines to be closer to his work, Wooten said.
He didn’t publicly announce his candidacy until May 2019, according to the Times-News. Wooten’s campaign finance reports, however, show he was paying a campaign manager between February 2019 and May.
Wooten has argued campaign committee accounts aren’t automatically closed when the election is over. He also said he wanted to put together an “after action report” for whoever ran next.
“I just wanted to make sure I was above board as I could be and If I was doing anything, even after the fact, related to the 2018 election that we were continuing to report and to make sure it’s in the public record,” Wooten said.
Wooten and North Carolina Democrats have also said district lines were in flux at the time he closed on his Greensboro home. While some districts were being redrawn at the time, neither Senate District 24, where Wooten is running now, nor Senate District 28, where Wooten’s Greensboro home is located, were among those.
In October, less than two months before filing for election, Wooten moved to a Greensboro rental home in the district, his voter registration and a second rental agreement provided by NC Democrats show.
Wooten lived in the district at least a year before the election, as is required by the state constitution.
Republicans allege in their mailers that Wooten “committed fraud on his VA mortgage loan” because he did not meet the yearlong occupancy requirement.
Mailers paid for by the North Carolina Senate Majority Fund and authorized by Galey’s committee also allege Wooten never moved into that home and turned it into an investment property.
“It’s clearly an abuse of the system to say ‘I’m going to buy this house that I know I’m supposed to live in, knowing that I’m not going to,’” Republican political consultant Babcock said, speaking on behalf of Galey’s campaign.
But at least one public record, the deed of trust for Wooten’s Greensboro home, shows that Wooten did not have to live there for one year if his lender, First Bank, agreed in writing or if “extenuating circumstances exist which are beyond borrower’s control.”
Wooten cited the latter as his reason for moving out before the year was up. Wooten said his attorney confirmed he fell under the “extenuating circumstance” clause since he decided to run for office.
“Wooten confirmed with his closing attorney that vacating the residence complied with his loan agreement, which his loan manager confirmed,” NC Democratic Party spokesperson Robert Howard said in an email. “JD chose not to rent the property for at least a year at a significant financial loss to ensure absolute compliance with the letter and spirit of the law.”
Elizabeth Bostian, general counsel at First Bank, said in an interview: “The bank doesn’t know anything about the circumstances surrounding where he’s residing. The provisions of the loan document speak for themselves.”
A spokesperson for the VA, Randal Noller, said outside of the occupancy requirement in the deed of trust, there is no set time period that a veteran must occupy a home bought with a VA-backed loan before turning it into a rental property.
“Per federal law, veterans have to certify their intent to occupy the property as their residence and that they will move into the home in a reasonable time period, which is generally 60 days,” Noller said in an email. “If VA learns that the veteran has not occupied the property or never intended to occupy the property, the case would be referred to the VA Office of Inspector General for an investigation.”
Wooten’s case does not appear to meet those criteria for being referred for an investigation. North Carolina Democrats provided Wooten’s utility bills to demonstrate he lived there.
Wooten moved out before the yearlong occupancy requirement was up and said his real estate attorney confirmed to him that he fell under the “extenuating circumstances” category. There is no evidence the lender has objected, or claimed to have been defrauded by Wooten.
Our sources:
Guilford County Register of Deeds
North Carolina State Board of Elections campaign finance reports, voter registration and filing date
Campaign mailer, provided by North Carolina Democratic Party
Cease and desist letter, provided by North Carolina Democratic Party
Randal Noller, Department of Veterans Affairs spokesperson
JD Wooten, candidate for NC state Senate District 24
Nathan Babcock, political consultant for North Carolina Republican Party
This story was produced by The News & Observer Fact-Checking Project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. It was edited by politics editor Jordan Schrader and Managing Editor Jane Elizabeth. Submit a suggestion for what we should check, or a comment or suggestion about our fact-checking, at bit.ly/nandofactcheck.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Fact check: Attacks over a candidate’s house are dominating an NC Senate race."
