Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue said Thursday that she is returning $12,000 in campaign funds to a Sanford family as well as a $1,000 check to a Rocky Mount businessman who was convicted on a charge stemming from the federal prosecution of former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps.

WRAL found that $16,000 of that came from one Fayetteville family. Radiologist Sheryl Jordan gave the individual maximum of $4,000, and a report shows the rest came in $4,000 contributions from each of her three teenage sons.

Perdue said her campaign didn't catch the source of the checks until WRAL brought it up. She ordered the money from the boys had to be returned, though there is nothing illegal about the contributions.

The campaign also said it will send a check back to Norman Y. Chambliss, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to obstruction of justice for lying to federal investigators in the Phipps case.

Perdue, who is widely expected to be a candidate for governor, has so far raised close to $2.5 million.

State law includes no age restrictions on contributors as long as they contribute their own money, not someone else's.

"Regardless of what's legal in North Carolina, and it's very legal to take money from somebody under the age of 18—so I'm not criticizing others—I'm saying for Bev Perdue, the standard for my campaign and my finance team is it's not going to happen," Perdue said.