State Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand has long been a dapper fellow, a smooth talker, a whip-smart legislator and someone his colleagues on Jones Street know it's unwise to cross. The Democrat from Fayetteville, who recently announced his retirement from the Senate to head the state Parole Commission, has often been on the side of progressive ideas, as well as serving business interests with legislation.
He's also a businessman with far-flung interests, and one of them has become particularly interesting of late. Rand is chairman and a big stockholder in Law Enforcement Associates, a Raleigh-based private security firm that supplies James Bond-like gear such as surveillance equipment to law enforcement agencies, including some in North Carolina.
LEA offers, for example, a $7,995 drinking cup that's also a clandestine recording device, and a $7,535 kit that includes a baseball cap with a hidden microphone and radio transmitter. The Division of Motor Vehicles bought more than $60,000 worth of items from the company - on a no-bid basis - under former DMV commissioner George Tatum. Tatum reported at the time to Department of Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett, and both men served under former Gov. Mike Easley. Tatum and Tippett are good friends of Rand.
Both are also stockholders in LEA. Easley and Gov. Bev Perdue also bought stock.
In the spotlight
The company and Rand have been in the spotlight recently because of a former chief executive of the company, Paul Feldman, who in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Rand of being part of an insider-trading scheme to enrich 50 state officials. Rand says without hesitation that it is not true, and notes that the company's stock has dived. "If I'm an inside trader," he said, "I'm the worst one you ever saw."
However the insider-trading accusation plays out, LEA certainly appears to have won some contracts without the customary DOT purchasing rules being followed, specifically that goods and services costing more than $10,000 generally have to be advertised for competitive bids. LEA got no-bid contracts, however, because a state official told the DOT purchasing chief that the needed equipment could be procured only from that company - and if you're really in the market for a $7,500 baseball cap recording device, that may be true.
However, state Attorney General Roy Cooper needs to get involved here, not because absolute evidence of wrongdoing has turned up but to clear the air. Considering the documented connections between this company, state government officials and nearly $200,000 in purchases of its products by state agencies, nothing but a full-on probe will do. Period.
A bad idea
And there's another obvious angle. Simply based on what The News & Observer has thus far reported, it's amazing that it apparently never occurred to the various high-ranking and powerful state officials with financial stakes in LEA that maybe it wasn't such a good idea for them to be making these purchase recommendations and decisions. If their own financial interests were involved, they should have recused themselves.
Mike Robertson, a former SBI agent who is now the DMV commissioner, told The N&O's Michael Biesecker that he wasn't happy with the way some LEA gear had been bought in the past. He does believe the equipment is needed, however, and says that although Rand is a friend of his, the senator has never encouraged him to buy anything from LEA. He says Rand is a person of honor.
Indeed, it would be unfair to draw final conclusions just yet. Which brings us back to the need for an official investigation. Starting one doesn't assume anyone did anything wrong, but it should reveal more about the ins and outs of the state's purchases of high-tech surveillance gear from a company with such close connections to so many state officials.
