RALEIGH — North Carolinians have lately heard more than they’re used to about political corruption in their state government. With the messy scandals surrounding former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, Congressman Frank Ballance, Davidson County Sheriff and GOP boss Gerald Hege, and others making headlines and confounding easy summary, it’s probably been a while since many of us have thought about that old standby of a story, allegations of corruption in the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles.
Well, now this hardy perennial has sprouted a colorful, if a bit fuzzy, clump of new growth. Outgoing Asheville police chief Will Annarino, a 30-year veteran of the department, has asked Attorney General Roy Cooper for a meeting to discuss what Annarino considers to be the improper handling of confidential documents in the investigation by Buncombe District Attorney Ron Moore.
The documents in question are a critical part of understanding how the DMV scandal first came to light, as you might remember (and if you don’t, the Asheville Citizen Times — which did much of the spadework on the story — has a helpful archive of articles to peruse). Then-Woodfin police chief Pete Bradley, who had previously worked at the DMV, had been cooperating with a state investigation of copious allegations of ticket-fixing, partisan political pressure, and other problems within DMV’s enforcement branch. One of the things Bradley told the SBI during the course of its probe was that someone knew about Bradley’s odd sexual proclivities (he was into “diaper parties,” and let’s leave it at that) and sent a letter presumably attempting to blackmail him into keeping quiet.
Unfortunately for Bradley, this information was later leaked to Woodfin’s then-mayor, Homer Honeycutt, who also happened to work at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department. The info was then cut loose, as was, shortly thereafter, Bradley as Woodfin police chief. And it just so happened that DA Moore had “shared” the aforementioned SBI file with a local law-enforcement agency that he has not named.
Annarino informed Cooper that he wanted to discuss not only this case but another one handled by Moore, what seems to be a lengthy wrongful imprisonment.
Moore, for his part, defends his actions by stating that he was obligated to share the SBI file on the DMV investigation with other law enforcement agencies within his purview if deemed relevant to another investigation. This is one of the murky areas where an outside observer is left with more questions than answers. Is this a proper interpretation of existing law? If so, does this law make sense given its potential, realized in the DMV case, to result in public exposure of sources and methods? And if not a proper interpretation of the law, does Moore’s action constitute a transgression worthy of at least censure if not an SBI examination?
Back in Raleigh, Cooper already has a lot on his plate, including some of the other scandals already mentioned, ongoing redistricting litigation, and catching up on other work after all those video shoots during the past year. (Just a little New Year’s humor. I know, very little.) Moreover, the culmination of the DMV investigation last summer left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. No indictments were ever brought, with both state and local officials (Moore most prominently among them) arguing that the misbehavior they found fell into two categories: either 1) contrary to law but hard to prove or 2) sleazy and relatively easy to prove but not contrary to law.
Still, this is a challenge that Cooper and his staff should welcome. Enough questions remain, and enough doubt about the integrity of law enforcement in the Asheville area, that there should be not only a meeting with Annarino but also additional investigation, consideration, and public conversation.
If there’s a New Year’s resolution that North Carolina’s political leaders ought to make as a group, it would be to take seriously credible challenges to the integrity of the electoral process, the budgetary process, and the law enforcement system in our state. We’ve learned what can happen when they don’t.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.