N.C. elections board chairman Larry Leake also addressed the issue of whether N.C. House Speaker Jim Black knew he was breaking campaign finance laws:
Did the Black campaign know or believe this to be illegal? I can’t answer that question. I’m not going to say that I disbelieve that assertion. It’s been pretty obvious here that I don’t mind saying that I find that to be less than credible. I don’t know what the Black campaign believed. I don’t know what the speaker believed on that issue. I am troubled by the fact that in 1991 he said this is a bad practice and we’re going to stop it, and it continued.
I don’t believe — but I’m not absolutely positive — I don’t believe that intent is a requirement to find a criminal violation of this law. I don’t believe that to be the case. I believe that it’s the acts which create the violation and a knowing doing of the acts.
I believe that the person who can best speak to whether the criminal law has been violated is the district attorney. And therefore, I unfortunately believe — and I use the word unfortunately because Speaker Black’s career is long and illustrious — that this matter needs to be referred to the district attorney to look at that issue and make those decisions.
And before I formally make that motion, I just want to say that the fact that a criminal referral is made does not mean that the individual has committed a criminal violation. It means that this board has significant concerns about the conduct and believe that that conduct needs to be closely scrutinized and looked at by the district attorney and by the agenices that he has available to him.
