Privately, Black was a man who pocketed cash in bathrooms, hit the town with an attractive young aide and slipped off to a budget hotel in South Raleigh to pay the bill of a man who broke the law.

The secret Jim Black, as it turns out, helped keep the other in power.

Now 72, an age when most men look forward to rocking chairs and grandchildren, Black is likely heading to federal prison. His sentencing is scheduled for today.

The Matthews Democrat played in a game where the stakes rose fast and antes went high. He came to power when North Carolina politics had become more competitive -- and money more important -- than ever.

His reach for power was methodical. And when he got it, he was determined not to lose it. Even if that meant breaking the law.

Black had a reputation as one of the most secretive men in state politics. Colleagues call it a product of the plots, coups and back-stabbing that often poisoned relations in the 120-member House and required near-Machiavellian skills to control. For him, it was nothing new.

"I operate on a lower level of radar," he told a reporter in 1999.

How low wasn't fully known until February. That's when he admitted taking at least $25,000 in cash from chiropractors in a series of furtive encounters.

In exchange, he protected their legislative interests just as he had those of other contributors. When keeping power meant chasing money, Black chased it with a vengeance.

"Black's selfish tyranny was motivated by a feverish lust to retain power," U.S. District Court Judge James Dever wrote this year.

In the insular world of the legislature, Black grew careless, even reckless, with the power he'd fought so hard to get. It is, said Democratic Rep. Dan Blue of Raleigh, a colleague and sometime adversary, "the classic human tragedy."

Secrecy from the start

Already a successful optometrist, Black was 45 when he first ran for office in 1980. He won a House seat that year and again two years later. A student body president in high school and college, he was fascinated by the political process.

"He wanted to be engaged, he wanted to be a player," said Charlotte Democrat Parks Helms, then a House colleague.

In Raleigh, Black learned under Speaker Liston Ramsey, a gruff Madison County Democrat who rewarded his allies and punished his enemies. The soft-spoken Black worked six-day weeks. Colleagues marveled at the workaholic who, after a grueling week in Raleigh, drove home and saw patients.

Black won his first races running at large. When Mecklenburg turned to districts in 1984, he lost the first of three straight elections. He didn't give up.

In 1989, he returned to the House. For $300 a day, he worked as an aide to the majority leader, a job that enabled him to make friends and do favors.

Elected again, he returned in 1991 as a member.

Black was not an ideologue but a tactician who loved the game. He often played behind closed doors. News reports in 1990 revealed how fellow optometrists bundled campaign checks with the payee's name left blank, and then, with Black's guidance, funneled them to lawmakers.

"The idea," he told a reporter at the time, "is not necessarily for you guys to trace it."

After Republicans took the House in 1995, Black became Democratic leader. Two years later, he challenged incumbent GOP Speaker Harold Brubaker and narrowly lost. He was determined not to let it happen again.

Rising to the top

So Black raised money -- more than $325,000 in 1998, helping Democrats regain control. Then he beat back a surprise challenge from Blue to win the speaker's race by a single vote.

He worked hard to unite Democrats and ingratiate himself. In a desk drawer, he kept a jar filled with hundreds of eyeglass screws to help members with emergencies.

He also helped constituents. Just as Ramsey delivered money to Western North Carolina, Black brought it to Mecklenburg County. He was re-elected speaker in 2001.

Three trends helped make Black more powerful than past leaders: entrenched speakers serving multiple terms, intense partisan competition and the rise of big money. By the 1990s, North Carolina had become the most competitive political state in the country. The House was Ground Zero.

Unlike the Senate, it flipped between parties. In 2002, Republicans won a 61-59 edge and were poised to elect their own speaker. Then Black pulled off two coups.

First, he got Republican Michael Decker, a conservative from Forsyth County, to change parties and throw him his support. Then he engineered a power-sharing arrangement with Republican Richard Morgan of Moore County, splitting Republicans in the process.

When Decker returned to Raleigh, he stayed at the Red Roof Inn south of downtown Raleigh in a room paid for by Black, according to records and court testimony.

That arrangement lasted until Black was again elected sole speaker in 2005.

Clutching power

Black loved the perks.

When he was sworn in as speaker in 2005, he decided to celebrate at a private room at Raleigh's fancy Second Empire Restaurant. He directed an aide to send a credit card number belonging to Don Beason, one of the biggest lobbyists in town.

Black moved in the fast lane.

He hung out with the late state Rep. Linwood Mercer of Pitt County, a one-time video poker lobbyist with a reputation for hard partying. Black was a fixture at Raleigh's fanciest restaurants with an entourage that included a young aide named Meredith Norris.

He consolidated power systematically, starting on the campaign trail.

In 2004, with the House closely divided, Democratic lawmakers raised nearly $13 million, twice as much as Republicans. Black alone raised nearly $1.5 million. Night after night, he barnstormed the state raising money. Democrats spent it on key races and that fall won six more seats than Republicans.

Black was a prolific fundraiser even by Washington standards. For two elections, he was finance chairman of the Washington-based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, raising $6.2 million to help elect Democratic legislators across the country.

A lot of the money came from special interests. Black backed measures to benefit optometrists, chiropractors and other groups that helped finance his political efforts.

When he wanted something, he could be tough.

In 1999, Black pushed a bill that would have required managed-care insurers to cover visits to optometrists, even if the optometrists were not in their network. Publicly, Black denied that he was trying to aid his fellow optometrists. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

"It was clear that he was getting a stranglehold on the institution," Blue said. "It's all about control. You can deliver on your promises if you've got control."

Sometimes Black cut corners. For example, he would pack a committee with legislative allies to get out a favored bill.

In 2000, he'd come under fire after the House cut four inspector jobs from the state's Structural Pest Control Division, about a third of the total.

Black's son, Jon, who ran a pest control business, had had numerous run-ins with the agency. Black denied involvement but agriculture officials called the cuts political payback.

Black helped supporters get state tourism jobs in 2005, helped create a $48,000-a-year state job for Decker, partly paid for out of a $5 million slush fund he controlled.

"He started to cut corners, and the more corners he cut and realized nobody was paying attention, he cut more the next time," said Joe Sinsheimer, a former Democratic consultant who for more than a year ran a Web site called jimblackmustgo.

All that raised eyebrows. So did Black's defense of video poker.

Troubles mount

Black had become the industry's leading legislative defender, single-handedly blocking legislation that would shut it down. In return, the industry helped finance his political machine. For the 2002 election, video poker interests gave him $108,000, according to the watchdog group Democracy North Carolina.

The games were legal but regulated. Reports of illegal cash payoffs by operators caught the interest of federal investigators. Around 2000, they began an inquiry.

They heard about Black's defense of the industry. And they heard about his aide, Meredith Norris.

When he was first elected speaker, Black had hired the 24-year-old as his administrative assistant. Norris was soon promoted to executive assistant.

In 2002, he named her to the powerful Rules Review Commission, whose purview encompasses all of state government. She later became a lobbyist and served as his unpaid political director.

As far back as 2000, aides warned Black, who is married, that his increasingly public relationship with Norris looked bad. Little changed.

Norris got wider attention when the lottery passed in August 2005. Among other duties, she lobbied for lottery vendor Scientific Games. The News & Observer reported that another company lobbyist helped write the bill.

Black's troubles mounted.

In October 2005, a grand jury subpoenaed Black's records. A week later, Kevin Geddings, one of his appointees to the lottery commission, abruptly resigned amid reports that he worked for Scientific Games.

Then in February 2006, Black told the state elections board that he had directed "blank" checks from optometrists. The board said his campaign had violated election laws and asked the district attorney to weigh criminal charges.

Norris would plead guilty to violating state lobbying laws.

Geddings would be convicted of fraud. During his trial, a prosecutor asked Black whether he had "a close personal relationship" with Norris.

"I like to think I've had a close personal relationship with every employee I've had," Black shot back.

His problems took a new turn in March 2006. That's when Michael Decker walked into the U.S. Attorney's office on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh with a story to tell.

The final nails

Decker had refused to testify before a federal grand jury and the state elections board, pleading the Fifth Amendment. But he'd gotten to the point where he "could no longer live with himself," said his attorney, David Freedman.

For hours, he told prosecutors details of his party switch. In August, he pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge, saying he took $50,000 to switch parties and support Black for speaker.

Later, in state court, investigators revealed how Black had met Decker twice at a Salisbury pancake house and how in the bathroom, Black promised Decker money to change parties. Black entered an Alford plea, in which he didn't admit guilt but is treated as if he had.

After Decker's admissions, a handful of chiropractors gave prosecutors their smoking gun.

They said Black told them as far back as 2000 that cash would be more helpful than campaign contributions. From 2002 to 2005, prosecutors said, they gave Black at least $25,000 at a private club in Charlotte and in two restaurant bathrooms.

Last November, Black was narrowly re-elected. In February, he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of taking illegal payments, though his attorney claimed it wasn't as much as prosecutors alleged.

Raleigh insiders thought Black was a shrewd political operator who knew how to game the system, but few thought he was crooked. Some of what he's been criticized for is standard procedure in the legislature, some say.

"I think Jim Black, the day he was elected speaker in January 1999, had no intention and no plan to do what he ended up doing and, at that point, wouldn't have done it," said Republican Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro lawyer and accountant.

Parks Helms said Black became a victim of what he loved.

"Jim is a good example of what can happen," he said, "if you allow yourself to be consumed by the political process."

(Staff writers J. Andrew Curliss and Dan Kane of The News & Observer and David Ingram and Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer contributed to this report.)

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