Easley testifies on flights

RALEIGH - Former Gov. Mike Easley on Wednesday gave a starkly different version of events surrounding the billing of air flights and repair work on his Raleigh home provided by a longtime family friend.

Easley, a Democrat, was North Carolina's governor from January 2001 to January 2009. He said that he never told the longtime friend and political ally, McQueen Campbell, to prepare false invoices for private airplane flights as a means of paying for paying for repairs to Easley's Raleigh house that he was using as rental property.

"He never, ever mentioned anything about repairs to the house along with any invoices," Easley said of Campbell. "There was never any conversation with him or me where he could imply, read my mind or anything else that I wanted him to submit bogus invoices."

Campbell testified earlier this week that he flew Easley on campaign and personal trips dating back to 1998, when Easley was North Carolina's attorney general. Campbell estimated that the value of the flights for political trips, had Easley chartered a plane at $87,895. An additional $14,290 was estimated to be the value for other, non-campaign plane trips he piloted for Easley.

Campbell said that the plane was owned by one of his businesses and he never received payment for the flights. Instead, the approximately $11,000 that Campbell sent in two invoices to the Easley campaign for plane flights was actually for repair work that Campbell said he oversaw at a house owned by the Easleys. It's the house the family lived I while Easley was attorney general and where the family currently resides.

At the time, the family was living in the Executive Mansion.

Testimony is expected to conclude today when Scott Falmlen, former executive directorof the state Democratic Party,  is expected to sit in the witness chair.

 Other people served with subpoenas, including Jacksonville businessmen Billy Sewell and John Pierce along with Surf City Mayor Zander Guy, are not expected to testify, said Larry Leake, chairman of the State Board of Elections.

Leake said that while Billy Sewell was served a subpoena, the board was actually hoping to reach his father, Lewis Sewell. However, the board was unable to serve a subpoena to him. Lewis Sewell is in Florida, Leake said.

Leake said that the board is not asking other subpoenaed witnesses to testify because they either don't have information the board needs or that their testimony would be "cumulative," basically repeating information that other witnesses have already provided.

Easley's testimony came during the third day of a hearing into campaign complaints filed against the former governor and the N.C. Democratic Party.

During Easley's testimony, he said that he did not routinely get involved in handling day-to-day activities of his campaign. He said that he concentrated on governing and left the campaign details to the professionals hired to run the campaign.

He said that he leased a GMC Yukon from Robert Bleecker, a Fayetteville auto dealer, for use by his campaign. He said his son, Michael, who was doing research and otherwise helping his campaign, would often use the car for campaign purposes. Easley said that at the time he did now own a car because the state security detail always drove him and he did not want his son driving a state car for campaign work.

The Easleys purchased the SUV earlier this year. Also earlier this year, the Easley campaign committee paid the money owed on the lease.

"It was sort of a loose agreement," Easley said of the arrangement he had with the auto dealership.

Leake said that the board will likely wrap up its hearing on Thursday. He acknowledged the differences in the testimony given by Easley and Campbell.

"Someone has an inaccurate recollection of events," Leake said. He said the board will have to figure out what actually happened.

Barry Smith can be reached at bsmith@link.freedom.com.