At 2:30 today, New Bern attorney Trawick “Buzzy” Stubbs, Morganton businessman Charles Michael Fulenwider, and former Western Piedmont Community College board member Robert Lee Caldwell are scheduled to appear in Wake County court to address their indictments for roles they played in Bev Perdue’s 2008 campaign for governor. The three may strike plea agreements, trials may be scheduled, or charges may be dropped, but by all indications, negotiated convictions are likely.

All face obstruction of justice charges related to their fundraising activities for Perdue. Stubbs was the law partner of Perdue’s late first husband. He and Fulenwider were implicated in a State Board of Elections investigation of Perdue’s campaign as part of a group of “aircraft providers” for the campaign first reported in detail by Carolina Journal‘s Don Carrington. Stubbs and campaign finance director Peter Reichard were considered the organizers of the aircraft provider group. Fulenwider and Stubbs had given the maximum allowed to the Perdue campaign and set up a private air force for the incoming governor, using unreported flights to hide illegal campaign donations.

Fulenwider recruited his friend Caldwell to cover up the cost of a 2007 flight from Hickory to Manteo so that Perdue could attend a fundraiser for then-Senate leader Marc Basnight. Perdue was picked up in Chapel Hill and returned there, meaning the flight cost much more than it would have if Perdue had flown from the Triangle to Manteo.

The flight originally was invoiced to Fulenwider. But Caldwell, who also was unable to pay for the flight legally, convinced a local barber, James Fleming, to list himself as the person paying for roughly $3,000 of the $4,000 flight. State records indicate that Fleming had not made a campaign donation in at least 20 years. Contacted in 2010 by Carrington, Fleming was unable to produce any proof that he had paid for it. In February 2011, Caldwell was indicted for the payment scheme.

The State Board of Elections in 2010 fined the Perdue campaign $30,000 for failing to report the flights. But Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, at the insistence of then-state Republican Party Chairman Tom Fetzer, agreed to review the election board’s files and other documents and kept the investigation alive. The indictments of the three men who will appear in court today, along with the convictions of two other Perdue supporters — Reichard and former Perdue staffer Juleigh Sitton — resulted from Willoughby’s probe.

Perdue personally has never been implicated in any of the fundraising schemes. We’ll see how this plays out later today.

To read CJ‘s full coverage of the Perdue flying and fundraising scandals, click here.