Forest aide sought meeting between insurance chief, financier later indicted

State Department of Insurance releases 6,000 documents in Greg Lindberg matter.

Posted 11:31 p.m. Feb 4, 2020 — Updated 3:59 p.m. Feb 5, 2020

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter, & Tyler Dukes, WRAL investigative reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Lt. Gov. Dan Forest's chief of staff reached out to Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey's office in early August 2017, seeking a meeting for two men who would later be indicted and accused of trying to bribe Causey.

At the time, the state Department of Insurance was reviewing three insurance companies Lindberg owned.

Within a month of the reach out, more than $50,000 flowed into Forest's campaign coffers from associates of Greg Lindberg and John Gray, at least in part because Lindberg hosted a fundraiser at his home. Lindberg himself donated $400,000 that month to a second political committee that the lieutenant governor controls and that accepts unlimited donations.

By the end of that year, Lindberg had deposited $2.4 million in political committees backing Forest's current run for governor. Forest put out a press release at the time, trumpeting his ability to bring in such a haul.

A federal grand jury indicted Lindberg and Gray in March 2019, and it became clear that Causey was working with federal investigators, recording conversations in a case that goes to trial later this month.

The Department of Insurance took control of the three Lindberg companies and a re-insurance company he owns last year, citing liquidity concerns.

Forest's chief of staff, Hal Weatherman, emailed Causey's executive assistant on Aug. 2, 2017.

"Mr. Greg Lindberg has contacted our office through a friend to request our help in securing a meeting with him, Mr. John Gray and Mike," Weatherman wrote. "Greg is one of the largest mortgage insurance writers in North Carolina. May I refer them to you?"

The part about mortgage insurance was wrong. Lindberg's companies handle life, accident and health insurance.

In a brief email this week responding to questions from WRAL News, Weatherman identified Gray as the "friend" referenced in the note to Causey's assistant.

"I was asked, in my capacity as Chief of Staff to the Lt. Governor, by Mr. Gray to request a meeting with Mr. Lindberg and the Commissioner of Insurance," Weatherman said in his email. "Was told it was time-sensitive and related to an out-of-state company relocating to North Carolina. I do not know if the meeting took place nor any other details."

It's not unusual for state insurance commissioners to meet with executives at the companies they regulate. Causey, who was elected in the fall of 2016, has said he had a get-to-know-you meeting with Lindberg and his team in late June 2017, not long after he had refunded $10,000 in campaign donations from Lindberg and his wife.

But the federal indictment states that Gray also asked North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes that August to schedule a meeting between the commissioner, Lindberg and Gray. Hayes was indicted last March as well, and he pleaded guilty in October to lying to investigators.

Weatherman's email appears in a 6,000-page public records release the Department of Insurance produced Friday, nearly 10 months after WRAL and other media outlets requested it. WRAL continues to review those documents, most of which are emails between state regulators and executives at Lindberg's companies.

After emailing his statement, Weatherman didn't respond to a request for further comment from him or Forest, who said after the indictments came down that "a few guys in there ... were friends of mine."

Forest also said at the time that Lindberg and his associates never asked him for anything in return for the donations. He has not been charged with anything, and neither have other politicians that Lindberg donated to, including Causey's predecessor in the commissioner's office, Democrat Wayne Goodwin. Goodwin is running to unseat Causey this year.

The Department of Insurance said Tuesday that it's "not aware" that the meeting Weatherman requested "ever took place." Spokespeople also said they had no indication Lindberg was having trouble getting a meeting with Causey.

But department emails show Causey was repeatedly invited to a September ribbon-cutting at the new headquarters for Lindberg's insurance company umbrella group, Global Bankers Insurance. He declined the invitation in July, and Forest was the company's special guest for the event.

Lindberg and members of his team were scheduled to meet with Causey's deputies on Aug. 15, 2017, according to back-and-forth emails scheduling the gathering. Causey wasn't slated to be there, according to those emails, but Jackie Obusek was. Obusek was a senior deputy commissioner reviewing Lindberg's companies, and the U.S. Attorney's Office says in its indictment that Lindberg and Gray later asked Causey to reassign her in exchange for campaign donations.

Those conversations took place in clandestine meetings in early 2018, according to the indictment.

Through spokesmen, Lindberg declined comment for this story, as did Gray. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the bribery charges against them, and legal filings from Lindberg's attorneys indicate he'll argue at trial that Obusek was cracking down on his companies unfairly and that Causey entrapped him.

Federal prosecutors say Lindberg offered Causey up to $2 million in campaign donations if he'd replace Obusek with John Palermo, a Lindberg company executive also charged in the case.

The same day Weatherman emailed to set up a meeting in 2017, the Forest campaign logged a $2,500 donation from Paul Brown, an executive at Global Bankers Insurance.

Reached by telephone this week, Brown declined comment.

Other executives with Lindberg's companies, including Palermo, also sent donations that month, most giving to Forest's campaign for the first time. Lindberg threw a fundraiser for the campaign near the end of the month.

Out-of-state donors connected to Lindberg also made donations. Condon Tobin Sladek Thornton, a law firm that has represented Lindberg for years, gave $2,500 to the Republican Council of State Committee, which Forest chairs. Richard Fidei, an attorney in Florida, gave Forest's campaign $1,000.

Fidei's law firm represented at least one of Lindberg's companies in Florida and worked to overhaul insurance regulations there.

Lindberg and his team pressed North Carolina for reforms in 2017 and 2018, and Lindberg put hundreds of thousands in donations toward Republican legislative campaigns in those years. His team offered hundreds of thousands more that were rebuffed, according to fundraisers for North Carolina Senate Republicans.

As 2017 came to a close, Lindberg wrote two $1 million checks to pro-Forest vehicles. One went to Truth & Prosperity, an independent political committee Forest can't control the spending for, though he's openly acknowledged fundraising for it. The other was the Republican Council of State Committee.

Among other things, the Republican Council of State Committee subsidizes Forest's gubernatorial campaign by providing office space at a cost of $4,400 a month, according to the latest campaign filings.

The 2017 donations were Lindberg's first for Forest, with one exception: A $15,000 donation to Truth & Prosperity in August 2016. That donation was initially listed in committee records as coming from Lynn McLamb, who was identified in committee paperwork as the former vice president of a South Carolina newspaper group.

The money actually came through one of Lindberg's in-home staffers, who is also named Lynn McLamb. After WRAL News questioned the money, a Lindberg spokesman said the businessman was on the road when the donation was requested, and that he asked McLamb to send it in.

Truth & Prosperity amended its 2016 report last May and lists the donation now as Lindberg's.

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