RALEIGH — State law did not require Easley to pay the State Board of Elections fine from personal funds, but he publicly has accepted responsibility for filing false campaign reports. The State Bar will reinstate his law license in December.
RALEIGH — Court documents show that five prominent individuals were implicated in questionable and potentially illegal financial schemes involving former Gov. Mike Easley and his general counsel, Ruffin Poole. None were charged with crimes.
RALEIGH — Federal prosecutors said Poole’s sentence closes the investigation of Easley, who entered a guilty plea last fall for failing to file an accurate campaign report related to an unreported free flight he received from a donor.
RALEIGH — The real estate investments in North Carolina’s pension fund lost about a third of their value last year; this was the worst loss among the categories of investments in the fund’s portfolio. Because information about specific real estate investments is not considered a public record, it’s impossible to know which investments brought down the pension fund’s value.
RALEIGH — When a federal grand jury indicted former Gov. Mike Easley’s legal counsel Ruffin Poole Jan. 21, it was just the latest setback for an Easley associate since the state’s media began investigating the former governor’s activities.
RALEIGH — Ruffin Poole, former Gov. Mike Easley’s general counsel and top aide, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on 51 corruption counts. The 64-page indictment includes charges of extortion, bribery, racketeering, money laundering, violation of honest-services laws, and monetary transactions involving criminally derived property.
RALEIGH — On Friday, the state Board of Elections in a unanimous vote asked the Wake County District Attorney’s Office to open a review investigating the possibility that the former governor, among others, may have violated the law.
RALEIGH — Former Gov. Mike Easley, the subject of a North Carolina Board of Elections’ investigation, testified nearly five hours Wednesday during a third day of hearings into alleged fundraising fraud by his campaign. His testimony often contradicted past witnesses’ accounts — and at times, the former governor said things that seemed to be at odds with statements he had made earlier in the day.
RALEIGH — Forgetfulness was a recurring theme through a second day of a hearing Tuesday in the North Carolina Board of Elections’ ongoing investigation into alleged campaign finance wrongdoing by former Gov. Mike Easley.
RALEIGH — The testimony highlighted slipshod record-keeping of five-figure donations, promises from Easley staffers that money would be diverted from Democratic Party coffers to the governor’s campaign, and accounts of services provided to the governor that were not disclosed in a timely manner and not reimbursed, as the law requires.
RALEIGH — Monday at 11 a.m., the North Carolina Board of Elections will convene a hearing to investigate allegations of campaign-finance violations by former Gov. Mike Easley, donors to Easley's campaigns, and officials of the state Democratic Party.
