News-Record.com

The hearings into Rep. Thomas Wright's campaign finances (background here) began around 10:30 a.m. this morning.

Nothing huge has come up yet really, but there are a few items worth noting:

• Torlen Wade, a health department official, declined to testify.

• Folks mentioned (but not yet on the stand) so far have included nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists, the landfill industry and payday lenders.

• Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake got everyone's attention when he asked Wright's former campaign treasurer "Do you know of any reason the campaign would have written checks to Victoria's Secret for instance?"

  There's absolutely no context for this question, so we can't say what it's about. But it did cause some raised eyebrows.

• Wright's former campaign chairman, Darryl Parker, and his ex-wife, Karen Davis-Parker, both seemed unsure about some of the checks written on the campaign account and don't seem to have been real active treasurers.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot to say so far.

Update: 11:45 a.m. Rep. Wright has just refused to testify, invoking his fifth amendment rights.

Update - noon: Kim Westbrook Strach, an SBOE investigator, is testifying now. Tid-bits so far:

• The Internal Revenue service had no record of the Community Health Foundation being a 501(c)3. Wright has been head of this foundation and much of the testimony so far has revolved around a real estate deal gone bad involving the foundation.

• Wright had more than one campaign account. Strach says Wright has up to four accounts, each of which co-mingle personal and campaign money.

• At least one co-mingled account took money from corporations, which is a no-no under state campaign finance law. Three corporations identified by name are AT+T, AstraZeneca and Anheuser-Busch.

We appear to be getting somewhere. More later.

Update: Click here for an update from the Associated Press.

Update: 1:50 p.m. The pieces of this hearing that were to deal with Rep. Mary McAllister have been put off until sometime after June 1.

Update: 2 p.m. Strach is back on the stand and once again testifying about Wright's various back accounts.

Update: 3:52 p.m. I haven't been able to upload updates for a while since the wireless signal I was using went kaput.

The hearing is over and the State Board of Elections voted to refer Wright's case to Wake County District Attorney. I'll have a summary of the things that don't look right in a moment.

Update: 4:09 p.m. There are a lot of numbers involved here, but there are a few fundamental things that the State Board has looked askance at:

• Wright apparently solicited corporate contributions, including the ones listed above, under the guise of the Community's Health Foundation. That money got put into accounts that contained campaign money.

• Wright had accounts that co-mingled personal and campaign income. While not illegal, SBOE Chairman Larry Leake called "very bad judgment."

• On behalf of the Communities Health Foundation, Wright helped arranged for the purchase of a building in downtown Wilmington owned by the Loftin family. The building was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 and the family should have made $150,000 or so from the sale.

  But in lieu of payment for their property, the family held a mortgage on the property for a while for the amount that the foundation and Wright owed them.

  That money was never paid and a bank that held a first mortgage on the property has since foreclosed. The family is out their money, with the exception of $15,000 in earnest money.

• To get that mortgage that was in first position, Wright obtained a letter from Torlen Wade, a health department official. Wright's was chairman of the House committee oversaw Wade's department.

  Wright obtained a letter from Wade that said a state grant was forthcoming to pay for $150,000 of the building. Both Wade and Wright knew at the time that there was no such grant in the works.

• According to testimony before the board: the Community's Health Foundation is not a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit. The tax id number that Wright gave to corporations for the nonprofit is a fake.

• According to Strach, Wright failed to report $220,549.98 in campaign contributions.

• According to Strach, there were a good number of personal expenses that were paid for by campaign money that were never reported to the board.

Wright offered no testimony or evidence during the hearing, so we're getting this story all from the SBOE perspective.

And Wright was far from loquacious when he left the hearing. He was asked if he would resign his legislative seat.

"Absolutely not," he said.