Corruption Charges
A criminal investigation into allegations of corruption at the North Carolina legislature has grown to include another possible target, Wake County’s top prosecutor says — and more charges remain possible in the months to come, including potentially against politicians. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman and the State Bureau of Investigation have spent more than a year digging into an allegation that a 2024 trip taken by lobbyists and influential Republican lawmakers may have been motivated by illegal influence-buying.
The trip — including a tour of Kentucky bourbon distilleries and high-end dinners — was among the events detailed in a complaint filed later that year to the North Carolina Secretary of State. The complaint was filed by Carolina Forward, a progressive nonprofit organization.
Four lobbyists have been charged so far, and Freeman said this month that more charges are expected. On Friday, she told WRAL News that the investigation will likely take at least several more months, although she’s hoping it’s finished before she leaves office at the end of the year.
The investigation has grown to include another Kentucky trip in 2022 — plus allegations of tens of thousands of dollars spent on strip clubs, luxury goods, sporting events and a beach trip in states throughout the country. Freeman confirmed Friday that another company, called M Group, has been added to the investigation.
M Group is a Florida-based housing developer that won approval in 2022 to build a neighborhood in Mooresville, a wealthy Charlotte suburb by Lake Norman, through a local subsidiary. To win the town council’s support for that development, the company agreed to build a new road in town itself, to save taxpayer money, The News & Observer previously reported. But the next year, as part of the 2023 state budget, the Republican-led legislature voted to spend $15 million of taxpayer money building that road.
Public records show that starting in 2023 while the state budget was being finalized, and continuing over the next several years, M Group executives poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign accounts of top Republican legislative leaders.
A Mooresville town website about that road project lists the contact for the developer as David Coble — who was also the head of Greater Carolina, the dark-money political group at the center of the investigation into the Kentucky trips and other expenditures.
“As part of the Greater Carolina investigation, we are also examining what, if any, connections there were between those affiliated with Greater Carolina and M Group,” Freeman said in an interview Friday. Freeman declined to say who else might be charged in the case and noted that different laws are in play. Freeman said the investigation is still exploring every avenue. No politicians have been charged yet, but Freeman said investigators are exploring elements that could result in charges.
“The further step of trying to establish that there was some sort of quid pro quo … is a high burden to meet,” she said. “But certainly it’s something that we believe is important that we do our due diligence on.”
Greater Carolina is mostly associated with House Republican politicians. A spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall said the investigation hasn’t included him. Most of the allegations that have become public so far predate Hall’s time leading the state House, which he took over in 2025. “He has not been contacted or interviewed by investigators,” Hall spokeswoman Demi Dowdy said Friday. “He did not attend either Bourbon Trail event.” Asked if any other House Republican lawmakers have been interviewed for the investigation, Dowdy said that she can speak only for Hall, who hasn’t.
Previous warrants have shown that Sarah Newby, the North Carolina Republican Party’s top fundraising official, also worked with Greater Carolina. Newby told WRAL in May that those activities were separate from her NCGOP work and that “I remain committed to working with integrity, professionalism, and the highest standards of reputation and accountability.”
Freeman said Friday it didn’t appear that Newby knew of the spending that investigators say could be criminal. “Sarah Newby has cooperated completely with the investigation, and we have no evidence at this point that would indicate that she knew how any of the monies were being expended,” Freeman said.
I-77 Poll
About 52% of Charlotte voters support advancing the I-77 toll road expansion immediately, according to a new poll. About 38% are opposed. It suggests “that voters are more likely to favor advancing the project now than delaying or opposing the expansion,” says Bryan Holladay, who runs CLTPR, a Charlotte public relations consulting firm. He has worked with local elected officials and various groups on a variety of issues. He commissioned the poll of 370 registered voters who were surveyed from July 15-18. It has a 6.1% margin of error at the 95% confidence level.
The multi-billion dollar interstate project developed by the N.C. Department of Transportation is on hold after the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization rescinded its support, despite lobbying from the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.
Local and state officials are now working to find a compromise to restart the effort, which has drawn opposition from leaders of neighborhoods close to the interstate and local activists including Robert Dawkins of Action NC, Shannon Binns of Sustain Charlotte and Raki McGregor of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus.
The poll found that 50% choose tolls charged only to drivers who use the new lanes as the preferred funding for the project. As for other funding sources, only 3.1% favor a property tax increase and 1.7% a sales tax increase. A gas tax increase drew 14.4% favorability.
The results show “strong resistance to broad-based tax increases,” Holladay says. “Instead, voters overwhelmingly favor a user-pay model, with tolls on the new lanes receiving substantially more support than any tax increase tested.”
Other findings from the poll:
- 51.7% agree that traffic congestion is a major problem in their daily lives.
- 77.4% agree Charlotte taxes are too high.
- 58.9% disapprove of the Charlotte City Council’s job performance
- 46% support and 46% oppose the 1 cent transportation sales tax that Mecklenburg County voters approved by a 52% to 47% margin earlier this year.
Bridge Proposal
A private developer’s unsolicited proposal to construct the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement project was turned down by a North Carolina Department of Transportation working group and an oversight committee. In February, Delivering Bridges submitted a proposal to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a new six-lane fixed-span bridge, with a target opening for 2031. The total cost of the bridge is expected to be $1.1-billion and has some funding from North Carolina Department of Transportation and a federal grant; the company proposed a toll to make up the rest at up to $2.75 per crossing. However, the committee and NCDOT deemed the proposal “not materially different than what was already submitted and programmed” in the state transportation plan. Additionally, the terms presented were either “not allowable or not beneficial to NCDOT.” Additional details on the review were not disclosed. The decision, announced Wednesday at the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s meeting, is only a determination on Delivering Bridge’s proposal. It does not preclude the replacement bridge from being tolled, nor does it mean the project could not be constructed with a public-private partnership in the future.
Bills making changes to the new state budget passed the Senate
Dozens of changes and fixes to the state budget, as well as brand new policy, passed the state Senate on Wednesday — including new power grabs targeting Democratic Gov. Josh Stein backed by the Republican-led legislature, and tens of millions of new taxpayer spending on sporting events.
One of two bills framed as containing technical corrections to the state budget that passed Wednesday included $40 million, spread over the next four years, to pay the PGA Tour if the golf association agrees to keep its longtime tournament in Greensboro, the Wyndham Championship. Specifically, the money would go to the Piedmont Triad Charitable Foundation, which operates the tournament. It would then be in charge of either inking a deal with the PGA or returning the money to the state if the tournament falls through.
It would also put as much as $25 million toward the Military World Games, to be held in Charlotte next summer, as long as organizers can show that at least 50 nations are participating in the competition.
The provisions targeting Stein include a new law that could force some of his picks to lead state agencies to quit their jobs if the state Senate doesn’t give its approval to them. Another provision makes tweaks to the Local Government Commission — a group in charge of overseeing cities and counties across the state, approving or denying their requests for loans to take on big projects, and which has the power to shut down city governments entirely in extreme cases.
It eliminates two of the governor’s three political appointees to the commission, giving those seats to Republican political appointees instead, and also kicks Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, a Democrat, off the commission and replaces her with a Republican political appointee.
Marshall told WRAL there was no good reason to kick her off the commission, just politics.
“The Secretary of State has been a member of the Local Government Commission since its inception in the earliest days of the Great Depression,” she said. “I have fulfilled this obligation faithfully, fully, and with great rigor during my 8 terms. Almost 30 years of valuable input and institutional knowledge was superseded by a purely political power grab.”
No Republicans defended or explained the decision before voting to approve it in votes Tuesday and Wednesday.
When asked about it by reporters after Tuesday’s vote, state Senate leader Phil Berger said he didn’t know the details of why Marshall is being replaced with a political appointee whom Berger will now personally choose.
Marshall added: “As the first woman elected to statewide executive branch office, it’s not lost that a strong woman leader has been forced off the Commission.”
The first corrections bill the Senate approved Wednesday, House Bill 268, fixed errors the legislature made in the new state budget passed earlier this month. The second corrections bill the Senate also passed Wednesday, House Bill 562, fixed errors the legislature made in House Bill 268.
DOT Board
Former DOT Secretary James Trogdon III has been recommended for a seat on the N.C. Department of Transportation Board by Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. Trogdon would be the first top DOT chief executive to join the 20-member board, though a board member has previously become the agency’s leader, a spokeswoman said. Trogdon’s appointment would fill the unexpired term of Kathy Harrington, a former state Senate majority leader who is leaving the board. The appointment is among dozens that are in a bill likely to be voted on this week at the N.C. General Assembly. Separately, House Speaker Destin Hall has recommended that current board members Leo Daughtry of Johnston County and Stephen Rosenburgh of Mecklenburg County be reappointed, and that Beau Waddell of Hendersonville join the DOT board. Waddell is a former chairman of the Henderson County ABC board. Former State Rep. Chuck McGrady of Hendersonville is stepping down. Daughtry is a Smithfield lawyer and longtime N.C. politician, while Rosenburgh is a real estate developer. The appointments are slated to take effect on Friday, pending the legislative vote.