SBI: Rep. Thomas Wright took money from nonprofit

In May we reported on testimony by an NC Board of Elections official that NC Rep. Thomas Wright appears to have diverted about $240,000 in campaign funds to personal uses, along with revelations that the Wilmington Democrat hid campaign contributions from an out-of-state waste management company angling to place a landfill in Pender County and potentially defrauded a Wilmington couple in a real estate deal for a building that was supposed to house a museum commemorating the 1898 Wilmington massacre.

Wright, an ally of former House Speaker Jim Black, who is now serving a federal prison sentence for corruption, is a former chairman of the NC Legislative Black Caucus, now chaired by Rep. Alma Adams of Greensboro. Wright remains in office.

The Board of Elections referred Wright’s case to the Wake County District Attorney’s office for possible criminal prosecution.

Now, a State Bureau of Investigations affidavit reveals that state law enforcement is pursuing several threads in the case.

Court records show that SBI Special Agent Rufus Williams executed a search warrant at the NC Minority Support Center in Durham on Nov. 5 and seized copies of a file for a loan originated in 2001 by Southeast Community Credit Union to the New Hanover Community Health Foundation, a nonprofit incorporated by Wright.

Williams is assigned to the SBI’s Financial Crimes unit, which specializes in white collar crime.

His affidavit states, “I have been assigned to investigate the activities of Representative Thomas Wright as to the alleged crimes of obtaining property by false pretense and perjury. The SBI initiated a criminal investigation into allegations that Representative Thomas Wright defrauded Coastal Federal Bank and James and Helyn Lofton of funds provided to him for the purchase and conversion of a building located at 926 North 4th Street in Wilmington.

“Also, the SBI initiated an investigation into allegations that Representative Thomas Wright knowingly provided false information on his campaign and organizational reports.”

Williams interviewed Tanya M. Branch and Paula J. McCoy, respectively the chief financial officer and chief executive officer of the Minority Support Center, on two occasions. The center, which describes itself as “the nation’s only statewide intermediary devoted to community development credit unions,” is the parent company of a credit union that currently holds the loan made to Wright’s New Hanover Community Health Foundation.

Branch and McCoy told Williams that the New Hanover Community Health Foundation, represented by Wright, received a loan from Southeast Community Credit Union in 2001.

“There was no record of any loan proceeds being deposited in Wright’s personal accounts or the Community’s Health Foundation,” the affidavit states. “No accounts were located for the New Hanover Community Health Foundation.”

Through an earlier search warrant, Williams acquired Coastal Federal Bank account records and determined that loan funds from the Southeast Community Credit Union — the loan now held by the Minority Support Center subsidiary — had not been deposited in the Coastal Federal Bank account belonging to the Community’s Health Foundation (a different nonprofit organized by Wright).

The affidavit notes that Kim Westerbrook Strach, the NC Board of Elections’ deputy director for campaign reporting, discovered three checks payable to the Community’s Health Foundation that were deposited in Wright’s personal bank account, including $5,000 from Anheuser-Busch, $2,400 from the AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company and $1,500 from AT&T. According to the affidavit, Wright admitted to Special Agent in Charge JE Umphlet that he had diverted the funds.

Finally, the affidavit states, “This SBI investigation determined that Representative Wright took money belonging to the Community’s Health Foundation on multiple occasions.”