Whoever thought you'd have to tell an 80-year-old to behave?

The Highway Patrol apparently has joined Hugh Heffner and Anna Nicole Smith's late-husband among octogenarians who were having too much fun. So it must have seemed to patrol leaders like a good time to reflect on past, um, accomplishments.

Following disclosure this week of a Highway Patrol sergeant's dismissal for having a drunken sexual encounter with the wife of a trooper under his command, administrators sent an e-mail to all employees Wednesday.

Reminding the recipients that this year is the 80th anniversary of the patrol's founding, secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety Ruben Young and patrol commander Col. Randy Glover urged troopers to remember that their on-duty and off-duty behavior reflect on the force as a whole.

As we celebrate and reflect on the organization’s many accomplishments, we ask you to remember that everything we do, whether on- or off-duty, is a reflection not only on our organization, but also on those who have gone before us.

Let us always seek to honor their legacy and the reputation of the Patrol with our actions. In the final analysis, we are all public servants and we must answer to the citizens of North Carolina.

The full e-mail is available after the jump.

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* A former state trooper wants his job back after being fired for having a drunken sexual encounter with another trooper's wife in the back seat of a car headed home from a Christmas party.

The woman's husband was in the front seat.

Timothy J. White of Salisbury was dismissed from the N.C. Highway Patrol on June 2 after he continued to contact the other trooper's wife, despite being told by his superiors to stay away from her, according to documents on file at the state Office of Administrative Hearings.

White, 39, was terminated for personal conduct unbecoming of an officer. He immediately filed an appeal on the grounds that he was being treated more harshly than other troopers accused of similar behavior.

Since 1998, state records show at least 27 cases of sexual misconduct by troopers either on or off duty. While some troopers were fired, several who had extramarital affairs or behaved inappropriately were given lesser punishments and later received promotions.

The incident that led to White's dismissal occurred after a Dec. 17 party at a bar in Mocksville, southwest of Winston-Salem. White, a patrol veteran who had been promoted to the rank of sergeant earlier that month, said he consumed about nine beers at the party. He then had a sexual encounter with the wife of Master Trooper Eric B. Perdue, according to the state report.

Perdue was White's subordinate and is listed as a witness to the incident. A third trooper was driving them home. (N&O)

* The director of the N.C. Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement announced his sudden retirement Monday, eight days after reports his agency bought all of its agents assault rifles and that two of the weapons were missing.

Bill Chandler's retirement was announced in an afternoon e-mail to the agency's employees from Reuben F. Young, the state secretary of the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety. Chandler, who was appointed to head ALE by former Gov. Mike Easley in November 2007, had worked at the agency 30 years as a field agent and supervisor.

Young said Chandler, 51, put in his retirement papers after the two had a private talk Monday morning. Though he would not discuss what specifically triggered the director's departure, the secretary said he was concerned by issues raised in a Sept. 13 article published in The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer.

Chandler will be replaced by John Ledford, a former ALE agent who is currently the sheriff of Madison County. Ledford, 44, will take over the agency in November, according to Young.

Two former judges and a former U.S. senator have been named to investigate the disappearance of state Highway Patrol records pertaining to then Gov. Mike Easley's travels in 2005.

N.C. Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young said today that Willis Whichard, a former state Supreme Court justice and former Campbell University law school dean; Robert Morgan, a former U.S. senator, former SBI director and former state attorney general; and Ralph Walker, a former superior and court of appeals judge and former director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, will conduct the probe, reports Dan Kane.

"Governor Perdue and I are determined to do everything in our power to find the answers regarding the 2005 records," Young said in a statement. "These three are dedicated public servants and have a history of impartiality and fairness."

The missing records are part of wide-ranging state and federal investigations into perks provided to Easley and his family. The patrol's records have helped show that Easley received free air travel from fundraisers whom he appointed to important positions in state government.

Read more after the jump.

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Gov. Beverly Perdue today declined to take steps to make public an internal state Highway Patrol investigation into missing records pertaining to her predecessor's travels in 2005.

Patrol officials say the internal affairs investigation, the second of two internal probes into the missing records, cleared a patrol supervisor involved in the records' disappearance, Capt. Alan Melvin. But neither the patrol or its boss, state Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young, are making the report public.

They cite state law that keeps most personnel matters secret. But the law includes an exemption for the release of personnel records when an agency's integrity is in question.

Perdue did not directly answer a reporter's question as to whether she would order the report released. She suggested she did not have the legal authority to do so.

"I'm not a lawyer," said Perdue, a New Bern Democrat. "I'm trying to follow the rules of the law ... I'm constantly told this is privileged information."

More after the jump.

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The head of the state agency that oversees the Highway Patrol is calling for an investigation into missing records detailing former Gov. Mike Easley's travels. 

State Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young has requested an independent investigation of missing flight records and he has ordered the patrol captain involved in their disappearance to go back on administrative duty.

On Friday, the patrol confirmed that Capt. Alan Melvin had been returned to duty. This was after an internal inquiry, followed by an internal affairs investigation, determined that Melvin had not intended to remove or destroy the records.

Newly appointed patrol Commander Randy Glover had made that decision last month, but Young took Melvin off the job again Monday. Patrol spokesman Capt. Everett Clendenin said Young was concerned about new information that a patrol secretary had given to The News & Observer about the missing records.

The secretary assigned to the governor's security detail said in the internal inquiry that Melvin had told her to download flight records onto a computer disk and then give it to him. He told her to then delete the files to "free up space on the computer."

The secretary said in an interview with The N&O that she had never expressed a problem with the computer that would require the need to free up space.

Young "had not heard that information before," Clendenin said.

The computer was turned over to federal investigators in May. The patrol has found flight records for 2003 and 2004, but they have been unable to find them for 2005.

Republicans respond after the jump.

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Col. Walter J. Wilson Jr., a native of Tarboro, has served on the state Highway Patrol since 1980 when he was first assigned to Troop C, District III, in Raleigh.

He was appointed by former Gov. Mike Easley and sworn in as colonel last July to be teh patrol's 23rd commander.

"Col. Wilson has served the Highway Patrol honorably during his 29 years of service to the state of North Carolina," said Reuben Young, Secretary of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, in a statement. "We appreciate his dedication and commitment to highway safety."

"I have never regretted my career choice," Wilson wrote in a letter to the patrol. "As colonel I have worked hard to make things better for all employees. "

The text of his letter after the jump.

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Gov. Beverly Perdue wouldn't say Tuesday whether she believes former first lady Mary Easley should quit her university job. But she wants the situation over soon.

A reporter asked the question after Perdue signed the smoking ban into law. Top university officials have called on Easley to quit her position, a five-year contract worth $850,000.

"I'm watching what the university and President (Erskine) Bowles are doing and I'm very hopeful that they're going to resolve this quickly. And I mean quickly," Perdue said.

Perdue said state officials are cooperating with federal investigators who are looking into former Gov. Mike Easley's travels and why Highway Patrol records detailing those travels are missing for the year 2005.

"We're doing everything we can do to be not only cooperative, but to provide information," she said.

Perdue said that she had no response for calls by Republican leaders for outside prosecutors or investigations. But she stood by Reuben Young, who heads the state agency that oversees the Highway Patrol.

"I think North Carolina is very blessed that he did not leave public service and go into the private sector," Perdue said.

Update: Young issued a statement in response to the news conference.

"I take this matter seriously and I assure you the Highway Patrol investigation will be thorough, fair and impartial. This is no place for partisan politics," Young said.

Gov. Mike Easley inducted close associates on his last day.

The two-term Democrat awarded 15 of his staffers and Cabinet members the Order of the Long Leaf Pine on his last day in office, Jan. 9, 2009.

The list includes longtime aide Franklin Freeman, chief legal counsel Reuben Young, spokeswoman Sherri Johnson, state health director Leah Devlin and senior assistant Susan Rabon.

He also gave an award to troubled parole chief Robert Lee Guy, although it was not included in state records.

As noted previously, Easley gave the award to more than 4,000 people over eight years, a rate of more than one a day.

A list of last-day awards after the jump.

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A state trooper fired after he admitted to showing a bank teller a picture of a naked boy with a "large penis" is challenging the dismissal in state admistrative court.

Ronald G. Ezzell Jr., 43, of Beulaville, a helicopter pilot for the patrol, said the firing was unjustified and "totally disproportionate to the conduct engaged in and inconsistent with personnel actions taken by the Patrol in other cases involving far more egregious conduct," Dan Kane reports.

Ezzell also accused the patrol of releasing information protected under state personnel law.
According to personnel documents, Ezzell showed the picture on Oct. 28 while doing business at a drive-thru window of a State Employees Credit Union branch in Kinston.

He was in uniform and in a patrol car at the time. He said he showed the picture as a joke, claiming it to be a picture of him as a boy at his grandmother's house. He said he did not intend to offend anyone.

It's unclear if the photo was doctored.

More after the jump.

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Reuben Young, the new secretary for the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, has decided to leave in place much of the agency's leadership.

Chief Deputy Gerald Rudisill, Deputy Secretary Jonathan Williams and Assistant Secretary Rhonda Raney will remain in their current positions, Dan Kane reports.

One change: Ernie Seneca is replacing Julia Jarema as the public affairs director. Seneca held a similar role with the Department of Transportation. Jarema is now the public information officer for N.C. Emergency Management.

Young was Mike Easley's deputy legal counsel and chief legal counsel during his two terms as governor.