News-Record.com

From today's story: RALEIGH - The federal courts had already taken former House Speaker Jim Black's freedom and power.

"It's the purpose of my sentence to take the money," Judge Donald Stephens, of Wake County Superior Court, told Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, during a sentencing hearing Tuesday.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In April of 2005, I started working the General Assembly beat full time and first met a genial, rumpled, mumbling guy in a blue suit and glasses who turned out to be one of the most powerful politicians in the state: Democratic Speaker Jim Black.

Little did anyone know at the time, he was about to take a fall from grace to rival any politician in the state's history. So it will probably fall to others to come up with something profound, laced with the long-honed wisdom that I lack.

For now, I find myself sympathizing with Wake County Judge Donald Stephens, who related to the court today that he had on Monday tried a case involving a gang shoot-out among kids who, by all accounts, came from good homes and should never have ended up in court. They did anyway.

"I am equally troubled today listening to all this," the judge said. "I've been required to look into the window of politics and from this window the view is rather unsavory - enlightening, but unsavory."

Click here to listen to the judge hand down Black's sentence. (It's about 10 minutes.)

(Photo Credit: AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chris Seward)

It really benefits no one to have citizens thinking their leaders are a bunch of self-serving, narcissistic, mendacious critters with a rapacious appetite for the perks and power of office. And, truthfully, I still believe the majority of the honorables at the legislature and elsewhere are in it for the right reason.

But you listen to enough sentencing hearings, revelations about cash passed in a bathroom, and deals cut to win office and even an idealist can begin to wonder. It's obvious now that it will take the legislature years, if not decades, to shake off Black's shadow. (See Jack Betts take on this.)

And so we come to today's hearing. It is possibly the last time that Jim Black will be heard in public. That is of course, if you could hearing anything:

• When he was in the legislature, Black was known for the sometimes barely intelligible mumble with which he ran the House and gave interviews. That continued in court today, where even the judge and court reporter who were sitting five feet to either side of him could barely make out what the former Speaker was saying.

  "I can barely hear you and I'm sitting right beside you," the judge said to his witness at one point. Those of us sitting in the peanut gallery were even worse off.

  Black explained that he had two hearing aids and it sounded to him like he was speaking up just fine.

• "Never in 20-some years of practice have I heard of the prosecution calling a defendant at his own sentencing," said Ken Bell, Black's lawyer. I've covered a bunch of hearings in my time, and it was unusual. Today's hearing felt less like a sentencing than a discovery hearing.

• "You and I know there are all kinds of shenanigans that go on with moving money around in politics," Black told Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, giving what at the time seemed a masters class in one aspect of political reality. One got the feeling that Willoughby might have responded, "Well, yes, that's why we're here today."

• This has already gotten a good going-over elsewhere, so suffice it to say that prosecutors did not believe Black's story about the $500,000 loan from lobbyist Don Beason being for a business transaction.

  I've met Beason a few times. He's a quiet, genial gent who sometimes assents to having lunch with us scruffy press types. His rep is knowing where many of the legislatures skeletons are buried and being one of the better lobbyists about.

  For his part, today, Beason issued a statement that said, "I recognize that making the loan was a serious error in judgment and I deeply regret it. I apologize to my clients, to my fellow lobbyists, to members of the General Assembly and most of all to the citizens of North Carolina."

• My story for tomorrow's paper will focus a fair bit on the tale Black told about the 1997 Speaker's race and Republican Rep. Harold Brubaker's efforts to win the post. I'll update this entry in the morning.

• You can click here to listen to Willoughby talk to reporters following Black's sentencing.

• A federal judge has already sentenced Black to five-plus years in prison. Stephens took aim at Black's wallet, fining him $1 million plus court costs and the expenses associated with the State Board of Elections investigation. If Black pays up by December, Stephens said Black will avoid additional state jail time. There will be a hearing in December on this matter.