Separate SBI turf war from sweepstakes investigation
Published June 18, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, June 17, 2014.
Video poker operators were big donors to then-N.C. House Speaker Jim Black more than a decade ago.
More recently, video sweepstakes operators have been big donors to politicians in North Carolina.
For years, Black resisted legislative efforts to ban video poker. His pay-to-play style of doing business in Raleigh eventually triggered criminal investigations, and the once-powerful Democrat was sent to federal prison.
Outlawed video poker machines morphed into other kinds of games to evade the law and now take the form of online sweepstakes offered in gaming parlors in some areas of the state where they operate with ambiguous legality.
Operators continued to make campaign donations — $700,000 from January 2010 through June 2013, according to Democracy North Carolina and The News & Observer of Raleigh. The largest donor: an Oklahoma man named Chase E. Burns, who pleaded no contest in Florida last year to two counts of assisting in the operation of a lottery. He “agreed to forfeit $3.5 million from seized bank accounts containing money prosecutors said came directly from the ‘laundered proceeds’ of his sweepstakes company, International Internet Technologies,” The Associated Press reported.
Donations to North Carolina politicians came from one of those accounts. Recipients included Gov. Pat McCrory, House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate leader Phil Berger — all of whom gave the money to charities after Burns’ legal troubles developed.
Now the State Bureau of Investigation is looking into political contributions by the video sweepstakes industry, N.C. Department of Justice spokeswoman Noelle Talley said last week. She gave no further details but connected the issue to efforts by the legislature to transfer the SBI from the Justice Department to the Department of Public Safety.
Justice is run by the attorney general; Public Safety reports to the governor. “This is an example of the type of public corruption investigation we’re concerned could be thwarted or repressed by not giving prosecutors access to an independent investigative team like they currently have with the SBI,” Talley told the AP.
Berger had a different view. “I think the fact the attorney general brings this issue up ... at this time just, again, illustrates the reason why we probably need to make the move,” he told The News & Observer. “Because that strikes me that is a political pronouncement on his part.”
Attorney General Roy Cooper is a Democrat; Berger, Tillis and McCrory are Republicans. Still, it’s unlikely the SBI move is an effort to forestall an investigation of sweepstakes industry cash. Federal prosecutors sent Black to prison and could pursue corruption charges against current political leaders if that were warranted, no matter who was running the SBI. An SBI transfer should be made only if necessary to improve operations. A convincing case has not been made.
As for the sweepstakes investigation — bring it on. This industry is overdue for elimination. Any illicit influence should be exposed and prosecuted.
