The N.C. Board of Chiropractic Examiners will not take action against the three chiropractors who gave former House Speaker Jim Black a total of $29,000 in cash and a check while he supported favored legislation.

Board President John Webster, a Whiteville chiropractor, said the board can not take action because its regulatory laws do not cover a case where chiropractors were involved in a crime but were not charged by authorities. So far, the only person charged in the case is Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat who pleaded guilty to a federal count of corruptly accepting things of value and state counts of bribery and obstruction of justice.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby has said the chiropractors — Fletcher Keith and Thomas Brown of Charlotte and Steve Willen of Greensboro -- would not be charged in the case.

Webster said that ties the board's hands.

“I don't like that, the board does not like that, but that’s the way the statute's written,” Webster said.

The board sent a letter to its members last week notifying them of the decision. Many had called asking the board to look into what the three chiropractors had done.

“Like all chiropractic physicians throughout the state, the remaining members of the Board of Examiners are embarrassed that some of our colleagues have been implicated in a statehouse corruption scandal,” the letter said. “But that unhappy fact does not change the scope and limits of the Board’s authority, nor does it change the legal code all chiropractors must obey.”

The letter said the decision had nothing to do with the fact that Brown and Willen were on the board at the time of the payments. Willen has since resigned, while Brown was not reappointed.

Webster said the board is talking to lawmakers about revising the regulatory law to give the board more authority over such behavior.

“I know that this has given us a black eye, and we’re trying to come around and do the right thing,” he said.