Rusty Carter, a major political fundraiser and businessman from Wilmington, swore in an affidavit that he illegally funneled more than $330,000 of his or his company's money to state and federal political candidate and party committees over the past decade.
Carter said in the sworn document that no one from any campaign directed him to make the illegal contributions.
And, Carter said, he never told any campaign about how he was donating, according to the affidavit, which was released Friday by the state Board of Elections to The News & Observer under a public records request.
A statewide campaign watchdog said in an interview that Carter should have to pay a hefty civil penalty. State law allows elections officials to assess a fine of up to three times "the amount of the contributions and expenditures willfully attempted to be concealed."
"He should pay a big price for this egregious violation," said Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, a group that has monitored campaign finances for years. "It should be six figures ... and the board should not let him off."
Elections Director Gary Bartlett said Friday that the state board has not met since Carter's disclosures and that he could not predict whether the board will act.
Benign intentions
Carter has said he did not intend to break the law. He said in the affidavit that he had thought donors had wide latitude in how they could give. That echoes comments from Carter's lawyer, David Long of Raleigh, who said Carter had thought he was within the law in his ways of giving until questions were raised in recent months by the state Republican Party about patterns of giving of Carter and his employees.
"I have been told ... ," Carter said in the April 26 affidavit, "your wife, kids, dogs and cats can all make contributions."
But Carter, a former member of the UNC-Chapel Hill board of trustees and fraternity brother of former Gov. Mike Easley, also said that he didn't know who gave him that advice.
"Additionally, I do not know which campaign the individual worked for or in which election time period the statement was made to me," he said.
Hall said ignorance of state law should not be an excuse.
State law limits an individual's contribution to $4,000 in an election period. Corporations can't give. And a donor can't give money to someone else to then give, known as giving in the name of another.
Carter's scheme unfolded in two ways, the affidavit says.
In one method, he gave corporate bonuses to employees of his packaging company, the Atlantic Corp., and directed them to then give it to political committees. In all, according to the affidavit, $266,900 went over the past decade that way to six campaigns: Gov. Bev Perdue, Senate leader Marc Basnight, Easley, state Sen. Julia Boseman of the Wilmington area, the 2004 Senate campaign of Erskine Bowles and the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
Basnight was the largest recipient with $84,000.
Next, at $64,000, was Perdue. Perdue appointed Carter's wife to the UNC-Wilmington Board of Trustees and then accepted her resignation as news surfaced of the questionable contributions.
Perdue and Basnight
Both Basnight and Perdue forfeited amounts that match the corporate donations - actions that came as Carter struck a plea deal in state court last month. He was convicted of making illegal donations, fined $5,000 and is prohibited from donating to candidates for two years.
The charges were misdemeanors, and were limited by a two-year statute of limitations on violations. Some elected officials, including Perdue and Basnight, have called for making such violations a felony.
But the affidavit also shows Carter gave illegally by giving money to his family members and then directing them to give it to political committees.
In all, he contributed $73,000 that way to the same six political committees as well as the Republican and Democratic parties. The single biggest recipient was the Republican National Committee, which received $25,000 through his son.
In addition to the more than $330,000 in acknowledged illegal donations, records show Carter gave more than $184,000 in legal contributions since May 1999.
That means that over the past decade, according to the affidavit, Carter fueled campaigns with a combined total of $524,330.
