RALEIGH -- North Carolina elections officials have penalized former Gov. Mike Easley's campaign $100,000 for unreported airplane flights and asked prosecutors to investigate
whether laws were broken.
The State Board of Elections decision Friday came after hearings into the conduct of the two-term Democrat and the state Democratic Party.
The party was ordered to forfeit $9,000 solicited by the Easley campaign.
The Easley campaign was told to give up $60,000 for flights costs and to reimburse the elections board $40,000 for its investigation.
A political ally of Easley testified this week he flew the governor dozens of times for campaign-related events.
Easley denied allegations he told the ally to file flight invoices to get money for home repairs.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Let's Hope
the SBI, or whichever agency was delegated to handle the investigation, does a thorough job. It's time a clear message was sent. No matter what office one held; no matter how untouchable one might have thought he was, all political misdeeds are subject to a complete review and criminal charges if warranted.
If you watched the video feed from the hearings, it was evident either Mr. Campbell or the former Governor was not candid.
If house repairs were paid for through billing flight invoices on flights which never took place, and an insurance check was issued for payment of those repairs, that smacks of insurance fraud. Is the Department of Insurance putting one of its crack investigators on this case?