Doing What Democrats Do
Gov. Bev Perdue and Senate leader Marc Basnight, two of the state’s most powerful Democrats, again find themselves wallowing in a pit of ethical slime after being linked this week to about $150,000 in tainted money that had snaked its way into their campaigns.
Heavy hitter Democrat fundraiser Rusty Carter entered an Alford plea to three misdemeanor counts of doling out illegal campaign contributions. The plea deal is a nifty legal move that allows defendants to claim they’re innocent even though they concede there’s enough available evidence to nail them to the wall.
In this case, Carter used a big money shell game to skirt state law that prohibits donors from giving more than $4,000 to a political campaign. Carter, who owns the Atlantic Packaging Corp. of Wilmington, gave his employees bonuses; in turn, the employees then used the loot for contributions funneled to the campaigns of Perdue and Basnight, giving up to the allowable maximum of $4,000 a pop. And they kept giving and giving and giving – 24 times to Perdue and Basnight, dating back to 2006, according to campaign records. Perdue’s camp raked in $64,000 of the ill-gotten booty; Basnight, $84,000; and Sen. Julia Boseman, $28,000.
Carter acknowledged responsibility for the campaign violations and said none of the candidates knew they were accepting illegal money. The governor and the leader of the Senate aren’t arguing.
Perdue had already turned over $48,000 in money received from nine donors connected to Carter and said this week it would forfeit the balance soon; Basnight followed suit this week, forfeiting his bag money to elections officials and claiming ignorance as to its origins.
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