Black's political career ends with five-year prison sentence

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July 12, 2007

Anonymous The Daily Southerner Thu Jul 12, 2007, 10:20 AM EDT

RALEIGH — After three decades of public service, Jim Black will end his career as a politician in a federal prison.

The former state House speaker, once one of the most powerful men in North Carolina government and a prolific fundraiser for his fellow Democrats, was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in prison for taking thousands of dollars in cash from chiropractors while promoting their agenda at the Capitol.

The 72-year-old Black took some of the money during clandestine meetings in restaurant restrooms. Prosecutors said Black told one chiropractor who paid him, "This is just between me and you, don't you ever tell anybody about this."

"Jim Black earned every month of his sentence," said assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Duffy. "He's a corrupt politician. The evidence showed he has been for years."

The Democrat from suburban Charlotte apologized Wednesday, calling his actions "stupid mistakes." An optometrist, he begged the court for leniency, asking through his attorney that he be sentenced to house arrest and ordered to provide free eye care to indigent patients as punishment.

But U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle called the 63-month sentence the "most reasonable" penalty. He also fined Black $50,000 and said he must serve three years of probation once he completes his prison term. Boyle said Black could report to prison later but didn't specify a date.

Black is the latest high-profile Democrat in North Carolina to plead guilty to federal corruption charges after a generation of relatively clean governing in the Tar Heel state.

Former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps pleaded guilty in 2003 to extorting illegal campaign contributions from carnival vendors looking for business at the state fair. The next year, former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud by siphoning more than $100,000 from a drug and alcohol-abuse recovery foundation he helped create.

"This one hurts," said Ferrel Guillory, who heads the program on Southern politics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "A speaker of the House sent off to prison certainly adds a smudge to the state's self-image as a place of good government."

Black pleaded guilty in February to just a single count of accepting things of value in connection with the business of state government. But federal prosecutors said Wednesday that much of his eight-year tenure as House speaker was marked by unlawful conduct, including a $50,000 bribe given in 2003 to then-Rep. Michael Decker that enabled him to remain in power.

While Black has consistently denied bribing Decker, he has agreed to be sentenced in state court to charges of offering a bribe and obstructing justice.

Prosecutors also said Black took $500,000 from an unidentified lobbyist in 2000 and identified it as a personal loan to his campaign, an apparent violation of state campaign finance disclosure laws.

"Today's the end of the line for Jim Black and his corruption," said U.S. Attorney George Holding. "Jim Black took corruption to a new level in North Carolina."

Holding said his office's corruption investigation is continuing. Along with Black, federal prosecutors have also netted Decker and Kevin Geddings, a public relations consultant appointed by Black to the state lottery commission who failed to disclose his work for a company that wanted to run the games. Both men have been sentenced to four years for their crimes.

Three more people, including Meredith Norris, Black's former political director, have either accepted punishment or were convicted on lobbying violations or obstruction charges in state court.

"I think the whole episode is unfortunate and sad, and it is a shame his career ended that way," said Gov. Mike Easley, who for years relied on Black to move his education-focused agenda through the House. "It is a shame for North Carolina, and it is just a sad day."

First elected to the state House in 1980, Black served for two terms before losing a re-election bid. He returned to Raleigh in 1991 and won his first race for speaker eight years later by a single vote. He went on to serve four terms in the House's top job.

From the House dais, Black managed a fragile Democratic coalition, getting budget bills through his chamber that expanded business tax incentives, education programs and child health insurance coverage. He worked to place black lawmakers in positions of leadership and traveled around the state attending fundraisers for rank-and-file members.

"Jim Black was a valuable servant to this state for many years, but the sort of crimes he has admitted to can never be excused for a public official," said Orange County Democratic Rep. Joe Hackney, Black's successor as speaker.

In late 2005, a federal grand jury began looking into Black's campaign finances and his connections to the lottery and video poker industries. Black's campaign was the largest recipient of campaign donations from the video poker industry.

The investigation first nabbed Decker, who pleaded guilty in August to a federal conspiracy charge for accepting $50,000 to switch from the GOP to the Democratic Party in 2003 _ a move that balanced the House at 60-60 and allowed Black to share power as co-speaker. Next came Geddings, who was convicted in October of five counts of mail fraud.

By December, after a re-election bid that Black won by just 30 votes following a contested recount, Black said he wouldn't seek a fifth term as speaker. Two months later, Black resigned from the House, quitting the day before he pleaded guilty to accepting $25,000 in cash on four occasions between 2002 and 2005 from three chiropractors.

On Wednesday, Black apologized to the citizens of the state, his colleagues and family. His attorney, Ken Bell, asked the judge to consider that a lengthy sentence "may well be a life sentence." Bell tried to explain the $500,000, calling it a loan Black used to prove he could complete a business deal. The money was later placed in his campaign account to scare opponents heading into election season, Bell said.

"As far as I know, there's nothing illegal about that," Bell said.

Prosecutors were unimpressed.

"We have a gross breach of the public trust," said assistant U.S. Attorney John Bruce. "Powerful men are not above the public law and that's what the sentence should say."

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