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Special Reports

Dana Cope, former executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, with his lawyer Roger Smith, Jr., right, listens to courtroom proceedings where he pled guilty of stealing money from SEANC in front of Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens on Tuesday, November 17, 2015. Judge Stephens sentenced Cope to 58 to 82 months in state prison.

Here is a collection of stories on Dana Cope, the former executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina. The News & Observer reported in February 2015 on his spending of SEANC funds. The Wake District Attorney opened an investigation the following day, and Cope resigned the day after. He pleaded guilty to theft in November 2015 and is serving a five-year prison sentence.

State Politics

The Reluctant Regulator

Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry rarely forces companies that cheat workers to pay.

Inmate William Walker won a settlement in a lawsuit that detailed his illicit 2010 relationship with Delia Durham, a Wayne Correctional Center counselor. In court records, Walker said Durham had sex with him and smuggled him contraband, including a poodle.

Special Reports

This inmate says a prison employee gave him cologne, steroids - and a poodle

Charlotte Observer’s ‘Wrong Side of the Bars?’, a North Carolina prison corruption investigation, looks at sexual affairs between inmates and guards.

Special Reports

Secret gesture, bloody shanks: Did prison officials allow this deadly attack?

Did prison gangs, inmates and prison guards collude in criminal acts including murder? Surveillance from one NC prison shows violent attack.

Former N.C. inmate Jerome Peters said officers at Central Prison handcuffed him from behind - and then brutally beat him. The state paid Peters $7,000 to settle his lawsuit.

Special Reports

Officers called it the ‘boom-boom room.’ Inmates found out why.

Charlotte Observer’s ‘Wrong Side of the Bars,’ a North Carolina prison corruption investigation, looks at inmate abuse by correctional officers.

Special Reports

From solitary confinement, a gang leader used smuggled cellphone to order a killing

Charlotte Observer’s ‘Wrong Side of the Bars,’ a North Carolina prison corruption investigation, looks at how guards contribute to contraband.

Crime

Deadly Force

A warrantless entry, an innocent man shot dead. A squad of Harnett County deputies who spread fear south and west of the Cape Fear River. A homicide in jail, caught on tape, yet somehow kept under wraps. Who polices the sheriff's office?

Special Reports

Wrong Side of the Bars

North Carolina tax dollars fund unethical hiring, prison guard corruption and violence, creating a black market where inmates buy contraband from correction officers.

Desperate for correctional officers who are willing to handle a tough job for low pay, the state hires dozens of guards with questionable backgrounds. Some already belong to gangs. Others have been convicted of serious crimes, or have been forced out of previous prison jobs because of poor behavior.

Special Reports

Prison officer flashed Bloods signs on Facebook, photos with gangster

Charlotte Observer prison investigation, looks at how people with questionable pasts get hired as officers.

Special Reports

How your tax dollars fund sex, drugs and abuse in NC prisons

Correctional officer This needs to be a 2-line intro for the top of the mainbar. Maybe we mention a person.

Carolina's Blind Side

A prosecutor’s choice leads to origins of UNC’s bogus classes

District Attorney Jim Woodall’s investigation leads to cooperation from a key witness, resulting in a deeper investigation at UNC. “Read the report and prepare to barf,” one university trustee wrote.

Carolina's Blind Side

A small criminal case cracks scandal

UNC trustee Alston Gardner, a Durham native who made a fortune in business, reacted angrily when Board of Governors member Burley Mitchell questioned the depth of the Martin report and said NCAA investigators should return to Chapel Hill.

Carolina's Blind Side

As revelations mounted on UNC’s bogus classes, leaders’ tension grew

Burley Mitchell’s comments, and his push for a full investigation of the bogus classes, heightened the tension between the Raleigh lawyer and his colleagues on the board of governors. Correspondence reveals leaders eager to move past the long-running scandal – and frustration with those who didn’t agree.

Special Reports

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