Wright's problems pile up

State legislator pays taxes late

RALEIGH -- Last July, a state trooper in Bladen County clocked state Rep. Thomas Wright doing 72 mph in a 55-mph zone and issued the legislator a ticket.

Two months later, the charge was dismissed.

"It was a courtesy dismissal because the legislature was in session," said Rex Gore, the district attorney for Bladen and surrounding counties. Gore, a Democrat, said his office also made a clerical error in initially handling the case, which factored into the decision to erase the charge.

Wright, 51, a Wilmington Democrat, resigned from his two committee chairmanships Monday amid a criminal investigation by the State Board of Elections into a variety of campaign contributions. The controversy, however, is far from the first time Wright's actions have drawn ethical, regulatory or legal scrutiny.

The legislator has:

* Paid his property taxes late 10 years in a row and is still overdue on one property.

* Earned thousands of dollars working for a foundation that was part of a state agency whose budget Wright helped approve.

* Failed to file elections reports, leading the elections board to refuse to certify his election.

Wright did not return a message left at his office Tuesday. On Monday evening, after relinquishing his chairmanships, he said he has done nothing wrong.

"I'm not doing anything else than to move the process along," Wright said.

In one of the higher-profile episodes, Wright earned $35,000 in consulting fees in 2002 and 2003 from the N.C. Foundation for Advanced Health Programs, a foundation that is part of the state Department of Health and Human Services. Wright was a member of the appropriations committee that approved the department's budget.

He said at the time that he didn't know of the foundation's connection to state government, even though its president was an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services and the foundation had its headquarters within department offices. Wright served as a health and safety consultant.

From 1997 to 2006, Wright failed to pay his property taxes on time on a Wilmington house, according to county officials. He is overdue this year to pay property taxes on another house.

The current investigation by the elections board concerns, among other issues, whether Wright tried to hide potentially controversial campaign contributions by reporting them after a primary campaign.

The board also is examining $8,000 in contributions from nurse anesthetists, which were made after Wright singlehandedly blocked a bill they opposed.