Boyce Allen Hudson, who worked for the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, pleaded guilty to the charges in May and agreed to aid an ongoing federal investigation.

In addition to his prison and probation, Hudson was ordered by U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle to pay $35,000 in fines and $15,000 in restitution to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hudson, 67, admitted that in 2004 he offered to guarantee a permit for Agri-Ethanol Products of Raleigh in exchange for $100,000 in cash and a consulting contract worth as much as another $108,000.

State officials have disputed the level of influence Hudson would have had over permitting.

Former Rep. Thomas Wright is scheduled to be back in court Monday.

Wright, a Democrat who represented part of the Wilmington area, has a procedural hearing in Wake Superior Court set for 10 a.m. The hearing relates to an outstanding felony charge of obstruction of justice, and it could result in a judge setting a trial date, said Assistant District Attorney David Sherlin, David Ingram reports.

"We do expect Representative Wright to be here," Sherlin said.

Wright, 52, is in Pamlico Correctional Institution, serving a prison term of at least five years and 10 months. A jury found him guilty in April of three counts of obtaining property by false pretenses. Wright fraudulently obtained a $150,000 loan and put $7,400 in charitable contributions in his own pocket, jurors found.

A grand jury in December also charged Wright with obstruction of justice. Investigators said he failed to report as much as $185,000 in campaign contributions, as required by state campaign-finance laws. Wright has said he did nothing wrong and that he is pleading not guilty to all charges.

In March, the N.C. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to expel Wright for violating ethics rules — the first expulsion in Raleigh since 1880. Wright, once among the House's most influential members, had refused to resign.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the plea.

A Raleigh company's bragging about its bribes to investors led to a guilty plea today.

Investors and officials with Agri-Ethanol needed lots of cash to build a $220 million plant, so they told investors that they had bribed a state environmental official who had helped them get a permit in 29 days, Ben Niolet and Titan Barksdale report.

One investor called federal investors who eventually had an undercover FBI agent pay the official, Boyce Allen Hudson. Hudson pleaded guilty to public corruption charges today.  

Key to raising more money was a guaranteed air quality permit from the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, explained assistant U.S. Attorney John Bruce in court.

Company officials and investors had a lunch meeting with Hudson in 2004 at a Raleigh restaurant. Hudson had become a lobbyist for the state environment department. Hudson and the company's chief executive agreed that for $100,000 in cash and a 2-year consulting contract worth nearly an additional $100,000, Hudson would help.

State officials said last week that Hudson's efforts did not influence the permitting process.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said he found it interesting that the company would brag about a bribe in a sales pitch.

"Is that the sort of thing you want to put in a prospectus?" Boyle asked.

Federal authorities who have charged a former state environmental official with public corruption subpoenaed a state agency in November 2007 for any records dealing with a company called Agri-Ethanol Products of Raleigh.

That subpoena, obtained today through a public records request, was related to a federal corruption charge against Boyce Allen Hudson, a former N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources official who is accused of trying to expedite permits for an ethanol company — not identified in court documents — in exchange for cash, Dan Kane and Ben Niolet report.

Court records show that Hudson will plead guilty to the charges next week in federal court. Efforts to reach Hudson and his attorney have been unsuccessful.

Officials with Agri-Ethanol Products could not be immediately reached for comment today.

The subpoena also sought information about the agency's dealings with a partnership that figured prominently in the Randy Parton Theatre.

More after the jump.

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Boyce Allen Hudson, a former state Department of Environment and Natural Resources official, is scheduled to plead guilty in federal court Tuesday to trying to expedite a permit for a company in exchange for $196,000, according to court documents.

Hudson is accused of trying to help a company get permits to build an ethanol production plant, according to federal court documents. Hudson is scheduled to plead guilty in Judge Terrence W. Boyle's courtroom.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Raleigh issued a cryptic notice today that will likely have public officials abuzz:

There will be a court proceeding in a public corruption matter before United States District Judge Terrence W. Boyle in Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 27, 2008, at 11 a.m.

The notice was faxed shortly after 5 p.m. today, after the office had closed. Start your guessin'.

Why did Pat McCrory beat Fred Smith?

As with the Democratic gubernatorial race, it's dangerous to draw sweeping conclusions, but here are a few educated guesses about how the Charlotte mayor won the primary.

He had a strong base. As a seven-term mayor of the largest city in North Carolina, McCrory had a larger pool of supporters than Smith. Playing on his childhood in Jamestown, he made a strong play for the Triad, where no candidate had a base.

He raised money. Aided by his ties to the Charlotte business community, he quickly made up for lost time, raising $1.2 million in the first half of the year — more than any of his Republican competitors, all of whom had been running for a year.

His ads were effective. McCrory had four ads in heavy rotation on jobs, immigration, corruption and leadership. Smith had two ads; Bill Graham just one. McCrory's ads were distinctive, with a clean white background that stood out.

He learned quickly. After initial missteps in his "garage-band" phase, Smith shuffled his staff and brought in a star consultant. He picked up on concerns about illegal immigration and corruption in Raleigh, cutting into Smith's core message.

His competitors ran poor campaigns. Smith ran an old-school campaign based on barbecues and spent money on a book and a song. Graham ran his TV ads two years too soon then parted ways with his consultant in the home stretch. Bob Orr was underfunded.

The N.C. chapter of Eagle Forum has endorsed Fred Smith.

The pro-family organization founded by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has endorsed Smith in the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

"Senator Smith has the experience and the integrity to restore trust in the governor’s office," said Eagle Forum State President Andrew Dunn in a statement. "The good people of North Carolina have had it with corruption scandals, illegal immigration and partisan politics."

He also praised Smith's 100-county barbecue tour, saying he "could easily have chosen" to concentrate on metropolitan areas.

Smith has also been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. 

Jack Betts add his two cents on Thomas Wright's sentence.

In a post on This Old State, the Charlotte Observer editor writes that Wright got a longer sentence than other politicians because he did not apologize and because of where he was tried.

A key reason: Wright was charged, tried, convicted and sentenced in state court. Black and Decker were sentenced in federal courts. And while fairness would seem to require that those sentenced for corruption ought to get sentences that are proportionate not just to the crime but also to other sentences for political corruption, the plain fact is there’s little attention given to what fairness might dictate. Everything depends upon the prosecutor, the charges brought, the jury’s makeup and decision, and the judge who delivers a sentence. And judges themselves, of course, must abide by the dictates of the differing federal and state sentencing guidelines. Federal judges particularly have to go through a long process before pronouncing sentences, and their discretion is limited, though not as much as it used to be. State judges’ discretion is also controlled by mitigating and aggravating factors.