Today’s Charlotte Observer reports on the high-profile support jailed former N.C. House Speaker Jim Black is receiving as he pleads for either clemency or at least a transfer from Pennsylvania to a prison closer to his Matthews home. Backers include former GOP Gov. Jim Martin.

Among those writing for leniency were several lawmakers and former
lawmakers, Charlotte investor Mark Erwin and businessman Cameron Harris.

Tony
Zeiss, president of Central Piedmont Community College, and Woodward,
the former chancellor of UNC-Charlotte, wrote on Black’s behalf. The
former speaker helped get millions for both their institutions.

But the Observer, citing a Carolina Journal exclusive published Thursday, notes that there are plenty of unanswered questions about whether Black got favorable treatment as he settled a $1 million fine that was part of his sentence on bribery and corruption charges.

While friends are rallying to Black, attorneys are defending a deal
in which Black swapped land as partial payment of his million-dollar
fine.

A Raleigh law firm that represents Black wrote the
John Locke Foundation late last week taking issue with a Carolina
Journal article questioning the land deal. Black was prosecuted in Wake
County and, under law, fines go to local school systems.

While
Black paid Wake schools half the million-dollar fine in cash, he paid
the balance in nine acres of undeveloped property. The Journal noted it
has a tax value of less than $150,000.

However, attorneys for both Black and the Wake school system pointed to a May appraisal of the land for $613,000.

And
attorney Kris Gardner, who represents the system, said the property had
been under contract in 2007 for $574,000 before the deal fell through.

?We
feel very confident that the property value is worth at least $500,000
today,? Gardner says. ?There may not be many takers right now, but the
school system doesn’t have to sell it right now.?

 

Over the weekend, CJ’s David N. Bass and Jeff A. Taylor updated the story, finding other issues about the deal, including an apparent inconsistency about the ownership of the land that was surrendered, and whether prosecutors could have gone after other real estate Black owned instead of the undeveloped Matthews parcels.