McQueen Campbell acknowledged earlier this year that he piloted former Gov. Mike Easley as a candidate, at times for free. But he would say little more about that.
Campbell also wouldn't provide evidence of why he received payments in 2005 from Easley's campaign account -- checks worth more than $11,000 that were cut to a Campbell-owned company well after Easley's re-election campaign. The listed purpose: travel.
And Campbell refused to reveal anything about his one-on-one talks with the governor.
"They were private conversations," Campbell said in a March interview.
But they could go public this week. Campbell is one of about 30 people issued a subpoena to appear at a state elections board hearing that opens Monday in downtown Raleigh. Campbell and his lawyer declined to comment, but the board has the authority to seek his testimony under oath as part of the inquiry.
Easley, a Democrat who left office in January, also will be called to speak publicly on concerns that have clouded his record as governor. Easley has previously denied any wrongdoing and said an elections board hearing was unnecessary.
Easley could decline to answer board members' questions. But the former prosecutor, attorney general and two-term governor would have to cite his constitutional right not to incriminate himself.
State elections chairman Larry Leake indicated that's not likely, saying he fully expects to hear from Easley during the hearing.
Other possible witnesses include a range of top-level Easley and state party donors, as well as staffers who were close to Easley while he was in office.
People who follow state government and politics are anticipating major drama as the inner workings of a high-level campaign come under formal scrutiny.
TV stations are planning to carry the proceedings live and The News & Observer will be streaming the hearing on the Internet. Elections officials are moving from their regular offices to the Clarion Hotel's ballroom to accommodate crowds.
"This is a spectacle to which all of North Carolina politics will be glued," said Gary Pearce, a longtime Democratic consultant. "We've never had a governor put in the dock and questioned like this."
At its core, the hearing will be focused on some typical campaign and election concerns: Did Easley and the party follow campaign finance laws on such things as contribution limits? Did they follow disclosure requirements? Did they adhere to the state's ban on corporate contributions?
Of all the witnesses, Campbell is one who would know plenty about the campaign and could shed new light on matters surrounding Easley, depending on how broad questioning by board members gets.
Campbell was one of the few people, beyond top Easley staff members, who enjoyed close access to Easley over a number of years, especially during campaign seasons.
And Campbell has said he did all he could for the governor, from flying him around to printing invitations for his fundraisers.
Records show Campbell made some donations to the state party that documents indicate were really for Easley travel, a possible violation of election rules. And Easley's campaign cut a $4,777 check to a Campbell aviation company in February 2005 as well as a $6,300 check in August that year.
Both checks were listed publicly by the Easley campaign as being for travel, but they were written long after campaign season was over and at a time Easley was using state-owned planes to get places.
Asked to provide invoices for those payments, Campbell has refused.
A man of many hats
Campbell's family, prominent and politically connected, has raised thousands for Easley's runs for office over the years, mostly from their base in Bladen County, about 80 miles south of Raleigh.
Campbell's father, Mac, was on the state Board of Transportation. His brother, Brian, has served on the state Aeronautics Council. Both were appointed by Easley.
McQueen Campbell is one of four brothers, and the only one who isn't involved daily in the family's bulk-oil distribution business. His mother is the mayor of his hometown, Elizabethtown.
Campbell forged a different path than his siblings, forming a series of companies and enterprises, from pig farming, furniture making and timber clearing to running an oil change and state inspection station and a real estate brokerage.
Court files and state regulatory filings show a number of legal disputes along the way, including two major spills that sent hog waste flowing into a creek from his hog operation in 1999 during the administration of former Gov. Jim Hunt, a Democrat. But no action was brought then because "the enforcement packages were lost," according to a memo at the state Division of Water Quality written as part of reviewing another violation two years later.
Campbell is an avid pilot who has also bought and sold dozens of planes and helicopters. It's not uncommon for him to fly off to some spot Down East for an evening, flight records show.
Layers of links
Campbell, 38, is entangled with Easley in several situations that have led state and federal authorities to swarm around the former governor. Some of those may not come up in detail this week if they don't relate to campaign finance law.
One of them involves N.C. State University, where Easley appointed Campbell as a trustee in 2001 at age 30 and again in 2005.
A 1993 graduate of NCSU, Campbell is said to have been the youngest trustee in school history. "I certainly appreciate him having the confidence in me," Campbell said last year, "understanding whatever I do, because I'm the youngest, I may be a little more criticized."
According to records, Easley turned to Campbell to help create a job for his wife, Mary Easley, a lawyer, at the school in 2005. Records show that Campbell responded by peppering Chancellor James Oblinger and others with calls and e-mails and stayed in frequent touch with Gov. Easley. Mary Easley was fired this year amid uproar about disclosures of the hiring and her $170,000 salary. Campbell resigned his post as board chairman after acknowledging he was involved in the hiring.
Campbell claimed to have won permits at that time from Easley's administration for a land development in Carteret County more quickly than others could have, saying he had political contacts and knew whom to call. Easley bought a lot in the development, called Cannonsgate; Campbell was Easley's agent in the deal and documents have since shown the governor accepted a $137,470 discount at the closing. The developer and financial backer of the development also have been subpoenaed.
In another case, the Easley administration helped Campbell. Top officials at the Division of Motor Vehicles waived enforcement actions brought by DMV officers that would have shut down a Campbell-owned state inspection station. Dismissals were sudden and without explanation.
Asked how he got that done, Campbell wouldn't say much at all, other than he called anyone and everyone he knew.
'Aggressive' approach
Campbell typically speaks in a soft, measured voice, even when he led N.C. State trustee meetings. But it hides an ultra-intense focus that has made him a financial success. Disclosure forms list him as an owner, director or managing member of 15 companies. He owns property across the state, including a West Raleigh townhome off Wade Avenue valued at $303,000.
His father is a past president of NCSU's athletic booster group, the Wolfpack Club, but the son has always expressed much greater interest in a different type of sport: politics.
Easley issued a public statement when he first appointed Campbell as a trustee at NCSU in 2001. The governor said Campbell has an "aggressive personality."
Steve Tatum, who was once in business with Campbell, said that is the only way to describe him.
"He's very smart, and once he gets his mind set on something he's going to do or get to, he doesn't let it go," Tatum said. "He's very business minded and he's very aggressive in that."
That persistence showed up in a land deal a few years ago Down East that led to sharp words about a well-known figure at N.C. State -- booster Steve Stroud, the man whose name is on the road that winds between the football stadium and basketball arena.
Stroud, a veteran Raleigh real estate broker, also was the person who had helped give Campbell his start in the land brokerage business, bringing him on at his firm in the spring of 2004.
But by the spring of 2006, after Campbell formed his own company, they represented competing buyers who wanted to purchase waterfront land for development. The seller was a land company represented by a New Bern accountant.
Court records show that it soon was clear that Stroud's buyer, developer Mark Saunders of Brunswick County, was going to win with an offer of nearly $60 million.
Campbell and his buyer, Cannonsgate developer Gary Allen of Charlotte, had offered less at one point. But they had included a sweetener: They were offering money, a job and a share of future lot sales directly to the accountant in trying to land the deal. It amounted to a possible $12 million for him, records show. In court filings, Campbell said the offers were made after the accountant, Dennis Ball, sought those things, an allegation Ball denied.
State real estate commission investigators recently have been asking questions about what happened then.
When Campbell and Allen eventually lost the deal, they helped spur a lawsuit. In an affidavit, Campbell alleged that amid wheeling and dealing at the ACC basketball tournament and other flurries of contacts, Stroud must have offered the accountant more "under the table" money than Campbell and Allen did to win the deal, something Stroud denies.
Stroud said he didn't want to comment on Campbell's approach, saying only that Campbell is from a good family that has done a lot of positive things.
Ball, in an interview, said "I rue the day I met McQueen." At the time, Ball responded in an affidavit that the offer of millions to get him to choose Campbell and Allen reflected the "outrageous aggressiveness and persistence of some of the real estate people prospecting for the land."
This week, more North Carolinians are expected to be introduced to Campbell, in the hearing room and on television. Until then, Campbell and his lawyer were not giving any clues about whether the public will see the brash real estate broker or the friend of a governor who doesn't say much.
