Three with video poker ties testify

Three people with ties to video poker operators testified to the State Board of Elections this morning that they each wrote $1,000 checks with the payee name blank that eventually went to the campaign of House Speaker Jim Black in 2002. The witnesses said they knew they were giving to Black, but were unsure how they should fill in the payee line.

Deborah Dunlap, whose husband works for a video poker business in Wilmington, told the board that she filled in the payee lines to make the checks out to the Black campaign at the direction of her husband, Robert Dunlap.

This is the second instance that a group of contributors to Black's campaign have testified that they used checks that left the payee line blank. In an elections board hearing last month, optometrists testified that their political action committee directed them to write checks with the payee line blank. Those checks ended up in the campaigns of Black, former state Rep. Michael Decker and other legislative candidates.

Black, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County, testified then that he knew about the optometrists' blank checks. Black testified that he had signed three of them over to Decker, who had helped Black remain speaker in 2003. Black is an optometrist.

But Black's attorneys said Tuesday he had no knowledge of the fund-raising efforts of video poker operators.

Charlotte attorney Ken Bell told the board that Black's campaign "doesn't see itself as having a dog in this fight."

Another witness, Thomas Crowley of Rockingham, told the board that he did not make a $1,000 contribution to Black that is listed in Black's campaign reports. He said that Leon Johnson, a convenience store operator who had video poker machines, asked him to sign a list of people who supported efforts to keep video poker legal.

"I signed there, but I did not give no $1,000," Crowley said.

The board is looking possible election law violations regarding contributions to the campaigns of Black and Decker. Hearings are expected to continue over the next few days.