Audit tears into trips to Europe

Mary Easley hires powerful state Sen. Tony Rand to press her contention that she wasn't involved in the planning

RALEIGH -- Expensive trips to Europe left taxpayers paying for hundreds of dollars worth of caviar, a linen jacket from France and a $27,000 chauffeured car that went unused.

Those revelations about spending by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources came from the state auditor, who dropped an explosive report days before voters decide whether to re-elect him. And first lady Mary Easley, who was widely criticized for participating in the trips, has hired one of the state's most powerful lawmakers to represent her point of view -- that she wasn't responsible for planning the two trips that cost taxpayers $110,000.

"She didn't book anything. She didn't ask for anything. She didn't decide anything," said Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, who is Mary Easley's attorney in her dealings with state Auditor Les Merritt. "She simply did what she was asked to do."

Rand, the governor's office, and Beth Wood, who is Merritt's Democratic opponent in Tuesday's election, slammed the timing of the auditor's report. It included new revelations about the excesses on trips that earlier this year outraged state residents. Merritt found that roughly 40 percent of the money spent was unreasonable or unallowable. The cultural resources department has repaid the money with private funds.

Merritt insisted that it wasn't his fault the report came out so close to the election. He was ready a month ago, he said, but spent that time trying in vain to get an interview with Mary Easley about the trips. Rand, however, said he made his client available but Merritt didn't want to talk to her.

Neither Easley nor her husband, Gov. Mike Easley, responded to a request for an interview.

Rand's entrance into the story was an unusual twist. Rand is the senate majority leader and a powerful figure in the legislature, which ultimately decides state budgets, including that of the Office of the State Auditor.

"I think he's the one that's involved himself in the politics, not me," Rand said. "I don't know that [Merritt] should be worried. He should try to do a good job. That's all we expect."

Senate Minority leader Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, said representation of Easley by Rand was "interesting."

"I think someone could look at that arrangement and draw a conclusion that the hiring of Sen. Rand, who at this point happens to be the chair of the rules committee and the majority leader in the senate, could be meant to influence the auditor and the exercise of his independent judgment," Berger said. "Whether it's intended that way or not, I don't know."

All the fuss is over two trips to Europe. In 2007, Easley and an assistant went to Paris and Compiegne, France, for a cultural exchange trip. A year later, Easley, the secretary of the state's Department of Cultural Resources, the art museum director and others went to St. Petersburg, Russia and Estonia for another exchange trip.

A July story in The News & Observer revealed that the trips featured first-rate accommodations. The story, and the outrage that followed it, prompted Merritt to look into the trips. He found about $45,000 in "unreasonable" expenses and said that the trips appeared to have limited or questionable public benefit.

State officials say the trips were designed in part to help recruit attractions such as the blockbuster Monet exhibit at the N.C. Museum of Art, which brought as much as $20 million to the state in 2006 and 2007.

A load of luxuries

From the trip to France, Easley's assistant at the time was reimbursed for what she claimed was a dinner for four but was actually a linen jacket. The state paid $27,000 for a round-the-clock chauffeured SUV that often followed the tour bus in which Easley was riding. Easley rode tour buses as much as 60 percent of the time she was in France, the audit said.