* The state environment agency is investigating whether its employees accepted gifts and meals from Verizon Business, a company that provides electronics to vehicle inspection stations.

Verizon gave the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources documentation of meals and a Carolina Hurricanes hockey ticket the company provided free to five Division of Air Quality employees from 2006 to spring of this year, said DENR spokesman Jamie Kritzer.

Three of the employees implicated still work at the agency, he said. Kritzer said the agency is working to verify the information it received from Verizon.

The State Bureau of Investigation is already investigating the gifts. Verizon Business holds a lucrative no-bid contract with the state. (N&O)

* State Rep. Nick Mackey has denied charges by the N.C. State Bar that he willfully failed to file four years of tax returns on time, saying he was following the advice of his tax preparer.

He also denied that he failed to pay four earlier years of taxes on time, saying he believed all forms had been filed and that monthly payments were being made. In his response posted by the State Bar this morning, Mackey also denied charges that he didn't properly represent a former legal client, and disputed allegations about his former tenure as a Charlotte police officer.

Mackey faces a December hearing before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which could opt to dismiss the charges or levy a punishment ranging from a warning to disbarment. The bar is the state agency that oversees North Carolina's 26,000 lawyers. (Char-O)

SBI agents investigating events surrounding state Sen. R.C. Soles Jr. have arrested a Tabor City teenager for setting fire to the house the senator helped pay for.

Allen Wayne Strickland, 17, was charged Thursday with one count of fraudulent burning of a building and one count of attempting to obtain property by false pretenses, both felonies, reports Michael Biesecker and Mark Johnson.

The charges stem from a July 29 fire at Strickland’s home, located at 99 March Avenue in Tabor City. Soles, 74, has said he helped pay for the construction of the house.

The SBI is investigating Soles after another man claimed in a TV interview that the senator fondled him when he was 15. The man later recanted.

The agency is also investigating an incident in which Soles shot an intruder at his home on Sunday. The man was not seriously injured. A lawyer for Soles has said the shooting was self defense.

Read the full story here.

Women are well represented in the attorney general's office.

Although there are few female district attorneys or sheriffs in North Carolina, nearly half of the staff attorneys in Roy Cooper's office are women — 142 out of 297 attorneys. They handle civil and criminal cases, offer consumer protection and provide legal advice to state boards and commissions.

According to spokeswoman Noelle Talley, a number of women also serve in leadership roles in the Department of Justice. Out of the 110 leadership positions at the State Bureau of Investigation, 21 are held by women, including Director Robin Pendergraft.

Cooper appointed Pendergraft in 2001, making her the first woman to hold that post.

In addition, Cooper's chiefs of staff, Kristi Hyman and her predecessor Julia White, are both women, as is the head of the N.C. Justice Academy, which provides training to local law enforcement agencies.

"He's made it a priority to make sure that women are well-represented throughout the Department of Justice," Talley said.

Roy Cooper says he investigates corruption too.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general e-mailed Dome today to note that the State Bureau of Investigation, which he oversees, also played a role in the corruption cases mentioned in a recent N&O article.

In a sidebar to the story, we had written that the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office brought down a number of prominent Democrats in recent years, including Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, former Speaker Jim Black, U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance and lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings.

Spokeswoman Noelle Talley said that the SBI was involved in those cases and more than 450 public corruption cases over the past eight years.

"Keep in mind that under state law, our office can take over criminal prosecution of cases when requested to by local District Attorneys," she wrote. "We are often asked by DAs to prosecute cases against public officials including sheriffs, judges, state legislators and others."

She added that Cooper has pushed for the legislature to give his office the power to convene investigative grand juries in public corruption cases.

As we noted, federal prosecutors have more powerful grand juries than state and local prosecutors.

Last week, Pat McCrory argued that Beverly Perdue should return campaign donations raised by a Board of Transportation member who steered public money to road improvements near properties he or a son co-owned.

He ended the week by attending a fundraiser on Emerald Isle that pulled in more than $100,000 — half from Tommy Pollard, a former transportation board member from Jacksonville who did the same thing 20 years ago.

McCrory's campaign said they will not return the $50,000.

"It's a bogus story to compare someone who is -- as a volunteer citizen of the state of North Carolina with no power — out raising money, compared to someone who is sitting on the Board of Transportation and is using that position to raise money," Jack Hawke, McCrory's campaign strategist, said Wednesday.

He added, "What happened 25 years ago has nothing to do with what's happening today."

In 1989, the State Bureau of Investigation probed whether Pollard violated state law by pushing for the installation of 10 traffic lights at an intersection where he owned property. It found no violation, but the then attorney general said the law needed to be changed. (N&O)

Two months after DHHS Secretary Dempsey Benton asked the SBI to review the purchase of a portrait by former hospital director Patsy Christian, there is no word about when agents might wrap up their investigation.

Tom Lawrence, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Monday that Benton has not yet received any response from investigators, Michael Biesecker reports.

Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice, did not respond to inquiries last week about the status of the investigation.

Benton requested the SBI probe May 29, following a report in the N&O about the oil painting Christian commissioned of herself to hang at the new Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

The portrait, which cost a combined $571.98 once installed in a gilded frame, was painted on contract by a state employee who was subordinate to Christian and provided to the state at a steep discount of its proclaimed value.

The SBI was asked to examine the events surrounding the commission and purchase of the portrait to assure that no state laws were violated.

Benton said the state money spent on the portrait, which came from vending machine receipts meant to pay for field trips and other recreation for mental patients, would be recovered and that the painting would never hang in the new hospital.

Lawrence said the painting has been returned to the artist, who is a nurse supervisor at John Umstead Hospital. A check equal to the portrait's cost was deposited into the hospital's account, though Lawrence said he did not know who the check was from.

Christian resigned as the director of Central Regional June 11. She is still on the state payroll in a new administrative position Benton created for her, earning $114,056 annually.

Update: Lawrence said Tuesday that a check reimbursing the state for the cost of the portrait was sent by J. Lee Harris, the artist who painted it. She is also a nurse supervisor at John Umstead Hospital and a former subordinate of Christian's. 

Although North Carolina's overall violent crime rate decreased last year, state Attorney General Roy Cooper sounded the alarm this morning about a nearly nine percent jump in the state's murder rate.

Cooper, during a press conference this morning, attributed the rise in murders to increased gang activity across the state, with a 52 percent increase from last year for juveniles arrested for the offense, Thomasi McDonald reports.

The attorney general said he supported current state legislation that seeks tougher penalties for gang activity and a bolstering of prevention efforts that will help steer young people away from gangs.

"We are in a battle with gangs for the hearts and minds of our children and we must win," Cooper said.

Cooper also noted that while the murder rate is up, rates for other violent crimes has decreased; rape ois down 5.2 percent, robberies are down 0.4 percent and aggravated assaults fell 0.6 percent.
The state also saw a rise in the property crime rate — burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft increased by 0.2 percent across the state.

More after the jump.

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First, Richard Moore released a new ad attacking Beverly Perdue for a vote she cast in the legislature in 1987 against a bill to give the State Bureau of Investigation more authority to investigate hate crimes.

Perdue responded by saying she did not recall the vote, that it must be a "misvote," and accusing Moore of "race-baiting." She compared his tactics to those of Jesse Helms.

Now, Moore's campaign is accusing Perdue of breaking her pledge to run a positive campaign "by comparing Moore to Jesse Helms." The Moore campaign also cited a letter by Perdue supporters posted on her campaign's Web site that defends Perdue and criticizes Moore.

A defense attorney for former Rep. Thomas Wright said he was unfairly targeted.

At a trial for the Wilmington Democrat on pocketing corporate contributions, defense attorney Doug Harris said that "somehow, somebody had ganged up on Mr. Wright unfairly."

"You don't know who in the state is driving this thing, do you?" he asked a lobbyist who testified.

State Burea of Investigation agent K. Perry testified that Wright told him he thought he was being singled out because of his work on the 1898 Wilmington race riots.

"He thought this investigation was race-related," Perry testified.

Later, Harris suggested that the state Senate or campaign finance activist Joe Sinsheimer had targeted Wright for political reasons. (AP)