Mike Easley’s longtime legal aide and law partner, Ruffin Poole, ducked a State Board of Elections’ subpoena Thursday by pleading the Fifth Amendment, the second time since October that Poole has avoided testifying before the board about his relationship with the former governor.
The elections board subpoenaed Poole to testify at a hearing on Easley’s campaign finances in late October. Poole had the subpoena quashed by a Wake County Superior Court judge on the basis of an undisclosed privilege. The N.C. Court of Appeals later ruled that he would have to appear before the board.
Poole took the stand at the board’s headquarters in downtown Raleigh shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday. As Poole was being sworn in by elections board Chairman Larry Leake, his attorney, Joseph Zeszotarski, again said his client wouldn’t answer questions.
Leake, a Democrat from Mars Hill, threatened to throw Poole into Wake County jail if he refused to disclose his full reasons for not testifying.
“I believe that our request for him to testify is in fact lawful,” Leake said.
Zeszotarski responded that if the board pressed the issue, Poole would be willing to disclose his reasons. When Leake replied that the board intended to press the issue, Zeszotarski said Poole would rely on his Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination to avoid testifying.
“We cannot compel an individual to give up his Fifth Amendment rights,” Leake told reporters after the meeting. “That’s his constitutional right. The law says that you should not assume anything bad about the person because he does exercise those rights.”
Others at the meeting weren’t as charitable.
“Today, Ruffin Poole decides he does not want to answer questions in public … that indicates, in my mind at least, that investigators are getting closer to a set of facts that will lead them to decide whether or not there will be indictments,” said Joe Sinsheimer, a former Democratic consultant turned open-government advocate.
Poole’s refusal to testify concludes the board’s probe into Easley’s campaign finances, Leake said.
Poole has become a central figure in state and federal investigations into Easley’s conduct while in office. In October, the board fined Easley’s campaign $100,000, partly for free flights the former governor failed to disclose on campaign finance reports.
Poole had a role in soliciting donations on Easley’s behalf while advising him on a range of topics including permitting, according to witnesses at the hearings. Critics see a conflict of interest in that relationship.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Thursday that Poole helped shepherd a permit for Cannonsgate, a costal development where Easley subsequently got a steep discount on a lot.
A spokesman for McGuireWoods, a Raleigh law firm that hired Poole and Easley earlier this year, said the same day that Poole was no longer employed by the firm.
During sworn testimony Oct. 28, Easley said that he never asked Poole to assert attorney-client privilege to avoid testifying before the board.
Amid growing pressure, Poole resigned Dec. 8 from the board of directors of the Golden LEAF Foundation, a nonprofit created in 1999 that distributes the proceeds of North Carolina’s tobacco settlement. Easley appointed Poole to the post last year.
The day after Poole resigned, Gov. Bev Perdue issued an executive order banning gubernatorial appointees from serving on boards and commissions if they’re indicted for a felony or refuse to cooperate with state and federal investigations.
Poole’s second refusal to testify comes on the heels of new disclosures from Perdue’s campaign that she failed to report six flights from private aircraft owners between 2004 and 2006. The campaign valued the flights at $2,177 in filings submitted Nov. 18 to the Board of Elections.
In August, Perdue’s campaign reimbursed aircraft owners around $18,000 for flights not reported during her 2008 gubernatorial bid.
Former Republican state Rep. Michael Decker is the last public figure to avoid testifying before the board by pleading the Fifth Amendment. Decker is serving a three-year sentence, reduced from four years, for accepting a bribe to switch parties in late 2002 and early 2003, which allowed the Democrats to maintain control of the House.
In another unexpected twist, Easley on Wednesday hired Raleigh lawyer Joe Cheshire to help him fight potential criminal charges. Cheshire, a well-known defense attorney, has represented high-profile public figures and elected officials in the past, including former 1st District U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance and a defendant in the Duke University lacrosse rape case.
Cheshire currently represents state Sen. R.C. Soles Jr., a Democrat from Tabor City. Last week, a grand jury found probable cause to indict Soles for shooting one of his former legal clients in August.
“It indicates that [Easley] wants an A-team,” Sinsheimer said when asked why Easley would hire Cheshire. “He’s had a parade of different lawyers through this process, and he seems to have finally settled on Joe Cheshire. But given his history, do we even know whether that’s going to be the same case in a month?”
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.