Key figure in 9th District election scandal hospitalized

McCrae Dowless was scheduled for sentencing Wednesday afternoon in federal court.

Posted 5:23 p.m. Aug 25, 2021 — Updated 10:41 p.m. Aug 25, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — The central figure in an election scandal that forced a redo of a 2018 North Carolina congressional election was hospitalized ahead of his Wednesday afternoon sentencing in federal court, WRAL News has confirmed.

Leslie McCrae Dowless was flown by helicopter from Bladen County Hospital to New Hanover Regional Hospital in Wilmington at about 8 a.m. Wednesday "under emergency conditions," according to Cynthia Singletary, who represented Dowless in the hearings that eventually overturned the 2018 9th Congressional District election.

His hospitalization was first reported by WBTV reporter Nick Ochsner, who recently released a book about the 9th District saga. Dowless, a long-time political operative in Bladen County, had a stroke, Ochsner reported.

Dowless was due at the federal courthouse in Raleigh on Wednesday afternoon for sentencing on fraud charges unearthed after the election scandal, but not specifically related to it. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in an email that it appears "the hearing will be postponed for medical reasons today," but did not provide details.

Dowless was indicted on multiple state charges after the 2018 election, during which his team went door to door collecting absentee ballots, according to testimony offered at the State Board of Elections hearings that followed.

Those state charges against Dowless remain pending, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Wednesday.

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Federal prosecutors have not charged him in that case, but their investigation unearthed evidence that he failed to report income to the Social Security Administration, and that he got payments he shouldn't have.

Dowless pleaded guilty in June to theft of government property and Social Security fraud. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, though the final sentence may be significantly less.

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