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Hall of Shame
Profiles of the predicaments that have caused political figures and other individuals involved in the political world to richly earn a place in our Hall of Shame.

Escape From Guilt: Kevin Geddings & the Honest Services Law

He pocketed a cool $160,000 from a lottery game maker, didn’t disclose it as required by law, and won a seat on North Carolina’s Lottery Commission. A jury of his peers found Kevin Geddings guilty of cheating the state of...... MORE

The Imitation Senator: John Edwards

In the 1972 movie “The Candidate,” Robert Redford plays a handsome lawyer who gets elected to the US Senate from California based on his looks. In the final scene at the victory party, Redford turns to his political consultant asking...... MORE

Hell Freezes Over: RC Soles Disgraced (but Unrepentant)

According to the Fayetteville Observer, a sighting of Sen. RC Soles in his home town of Tabor City can be cause for pandemonium. “A handful of young men chase Soles all over town … If he ignores them, [they] yell and...... MORE

Gov. Mike Easley: Using His Position to Line His Pockets

Sweetheart land deals. Free cars, country club memberships, and vacations. Jobs for relatives, cover-ups and public money for personal political gain. No sooner did Governor Mike Easley depart the environs of his office than were federal prosecutors and state investigators...... MORE

Meg Scott Phipps and the Fair Scandal: Riding the Roller Coaster To Prison

She was a pioneer. Accepting envelopes stuffed with cash, convicted on multiple state and federal charges, at the time, Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps gave us the biggest corruption scandal of the modern era. Despite being later eclipsed by Jim...... MORE

Rep. Mary McAllister: Safe Sex Scammer

Question –when is safe sex unsafe? When you’re a taxpayer paying for it. In 2008, the state auditor released a blistering report about misspending of taxpayers’ dollars by Operation Sickle Cell, a Fayetteville non-profit that also instructs in the proper...... MORE

Frank Ballance: Your Money Was His Money

“He ran that foundation like a private piggy bank.” That’s what federal prosecutor Dennis Duffy said when former Congressman Frank Ballance was sentenced to four years in prison for mail fraud and money laundering for taking $200,000 of taxpayers money...... MORE

Don Beason: Fall of a Fixer

Though forced to give up his lucrative lobbying career amidst the scandals surrounding then-Speaker of the House Jim Black in 2007, in the spring of 2009, things were only getting worse for former top lobbyist Don Beason.John Lynch, a special...... MORE

Boyce Allen Hudson: A Loud, Boasting Criminal

His character witnesses said he liked to boast about what he could do. While the taxpayers paid him a $62,000 state salary, state officials claimed that he really didn’t wield any influence. Federal prosecutors disagreed, and Boyce Allen Hudson is...... MORE

The Thomas Wright Affair: Another House Leader Gone Wrong

“Like his political godfather, Jim Black, Rep. Wright is an embarrassment to the state and no longer deserves to be in the General Assembly” (News & Observer, 12/11/07).Those were the words of Democratic operative and campaign finance watchdog Joe Sinsheimer...... MORE

Michael Decker: From Backbench to the Big House

While sentencing former Representative Michael Decker to four years in federal prison, federal Judge James Dever declared “How can citizens respect the rule of law when lawmakers feloniously trample the law?”A dedicated Christian conservative who entered politics campaigning for Jesse...... MORE

Jim Black: A Black Mark on the Legislature

In 1998, hog farmers and two Republican legislators testified under oath that then-North Carolina House Speaker Harold Brubaker warned of retaliation against the hog industry because they didn't deliver the $200,000 that they'd promised in the 1996 election.  After hearing...... MORE

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