Ex-prosecutor convicted in NC ‘wife swap’ case gets his law license back
A former Rockingham County district attorney who admitted a criminal scheme that involved putting his wife on the payroll of another prosecutor now has his law license back.
Craig Blitzer, 56, of Reidsville, lost his ability to practice law on Aug. 3, 2017, after being convicted of misdemeanor failure to discharge the duties of his office.
Blitzer came under scrutiny in 2016, a year after taking office, when the State Bureau of Investigation learned that his wife had received $48,000 in unearned pay by claiming to work for the neighboring district attorney’s office while actually taking nursing classes more than 77 miles away.
Blitzer wasn’t sentenced for his crime until 2019 because of agreements he made in a 2017 plea deal. That caused the N.C. State Bar to delay his disciplinary hearing until 2020.
At that point, the Bar suspended Blitzer from working as a lawyer for a four-year period but gave him credit for the years prior.
Blitzer petitioned for reinstatement on Aug. 11, and his license was restored on Aug. 19 when the disciplinary committee confirmed that he met the requirements to return to practicing law, according to State Bar records.
After resigning as district attorney in 2017, Blitzer returned to his first career as a pilot flying for American Airlines.
N.C. State Bar records show Blitzer lives out-of-state. They don’t say where he lives.
Conflicting statements to the court make it unclear whether Blitzer and his wife remain a couple. They are still listed as owners of a Reidsville home that is currently for sale.
The wife swap
Former Person/Caswell County District Attorney Wallace Bradsher and Blitzer met in 2002 while Blitzer was serving as an attorney for the state representing people who faced the death penalty.
Blitzer testified that Bradsher had convinced him, in 2014, during his campaign for district attorney that it would be OK to hire his wife to supplement lost income after stepping away from private practice to prosecute.
When the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts learned, in 2015, that both men had their wives on their own payrolls they notified the district attorneys that this was an ethics violation and needed to end immediately.
Blitzer signed an affidavit saying that he and Bradsher came up with the idea to put each other’s wives on each other’s payroll at an Italian restaurant in Wentworth outside the Rockingham County Courthouse.
“I was in panic mode,” Blitzer testified in 2019. “I just took a huge pay cut and now I can’t hire my wife.”
But Bradsher told the Blitzers that Cindy Blitzer did not need to come to work and could take her nursing classes in High Point instead but still claim the hours, both Blitzers testified in 2019.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told the courts during Blitzer’s sentencing that she always saw his case as being different from Bradsher’s because he had owned up to his mistakes and told the truth.
His attorneys said after his sentencing that Blitzer hoped to one day come back to practicing law.
Wallace Bradsher
Blitzer resigned from office in February 2017 and took his plea deal six months later, agreeing to surrender his law license and testify against Bradsher.
Bradsher, who was expected to take a similar deal, instead tried to prove his innocence in court in a case that dragged out until summer 2018.
Wake County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway sentenced Bradsher to four months in prison after he was found guilty of felony obtaining property by false pretense, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting and misdemeanor obstruction of justice and failure to discharge the duties of his office.
Ridgeway ordered Bradsher to surrender his law license during the sentencing. Bradsher must wait five years before petitioning to be reinstated, according to the order.
He served his jail time before the N.C. Court of Appeals overturned his conviction for obtaining property by false pretense and one of the convictions for obstruction of justice. The appellate court found that he did not help Cindy Blitzer falsify her timecard and that he did not impede the SBI’s investigation after reviewing those records, court documents state.
Wake County jurors also awarded Bradsher’s employee, Debra Holbrook, $1.8 million for retaliation she experienced from Bradsher after she reported him to the SBI.
Her report, along with a report by Blitzer’s employee, Jason Ramey, launched the SBI investigation. Ramey succeeded Blitzer and Bradsher as the district attorney of both Rockingham and Caswell counties after the state redefined the prosecutorial district.
