Elections board sought investigation into member

Officials at the state Board of Elections asked the State Attorney General’s Office to probe whether there was improper influence by one of the board’s members into a board-sponsored investigation of campaign contributions made by a video sweepstakes executive.

The board member, Paul J. Foley, works at a law firm that documents show also received substantial payments from Chase Burns, the sweepstakes executive at the center of the board’s investigation.

Alexander McC. Peters, a senior deputy attorney general, last month informed the elections board that he had determined that persistent questioning by Foley of board staff members about the probe did not affect the investigation or affect its outcome.

Peters’ conclusion is in a report provided Friday to The News & Observer after a public records request.

The AG report says that Foley asked persistent questions about the sweepstakes case for more than a year without disclosing a possible conflict or recusing himself from deciding the case.

Foley works in the Winston-Salem office of Kilpatrick Townsend, a law firm.

The AG report says that the board’s investigation uncovered records showing that the law firm was paid more than $1.27 million from Burns or a related company over a four-year period.

When that information surfaced, Foley then recused himself from matters related to Burns. Foley was appointed to the board by Gov. Pat McCrory in 2013 and is a partner in the Winston-Salem office of the firm.

The AG’s report says that, while it found no undue influence on state board investigators, questions about whether Foley knew or should have known of the payments or whether he has an actual conflict of interest with regard to the Burns investigation are “beyond the appropriate scope the role of the Office of the Attorney General.”

“Such questions are better addressed to other state entities responsible for addressing them, such as the North Carolina State Ethics Commission or the North Carolina State Bar,” the AG report says.

The attorney general’s probe was initiated when the chairman of the elections board and several staff members last year grew concerned that Foley had taken an undue interest in the agency’s investigation by asking lots of questions about the probe.

“While almost all State Board staff members interviewed stated that they found Foley’s regular questions on the status of the Burns investigation unusual, and even unprecedented in their experience, each staff member involved in the investigation was clear that the questions asked by Foley were, in general, questions about the status of the investigation,” the AG report says. “They stated that they never felt pressured by him to move in any particular direction.”

Foley said the AG’s office “correctly concluded that I had no effect on the investigation.”

“I never attempted to influence the direction or outcome of the investigation,” he said.

Burns was a big player in political contributions in North Carolina and other states in recent years. He put about $230,000 into state legislative races in 2012 as he pushed for legalization of the industry. In 2013, he pleaded no contest in Florida to criminal charges of assisting in the operation of a lottery and forfeited $3.5 million from bank accounts seized during an investigation.

North Carolina elections officials have been looking into Burns’ case since 2013 and a report on that probe is expected to be released next week.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Elections board sought investigation into member."