Dwight Poole, charged with seven counts of aiding and abetting underage drinking for a party at his farm earlier this month, made his first court appearance Thursday.
WRAL Investigates has reported extensively on the May 2 party at Smokehouse Valley Farm in Orange County, where the sheriff’s office says there were more than 2,500 people and more than 70 calls to 911.
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The 911 calls for help included for someone who was unconscious, neighbors who couldn’t sleep, and a pregnant woman having contractions who was unable to get out of her driveway.
WRAL Investigates has also reported on the broader issue of farm parties and concerns from law enforcement and community groups
In court, Poole requested a court-appointed attorney and was assigned a next court date of June 26.
Afterward, Poole and his wife exited through a side door. WRAL Investigates’ Sarah Krueger was able to speak with him briefly in the stairwell.
“I’m not guilty, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t drink. I don’t give anybody no alcohol or anything.”
“To be clear,” Krueger asked, “if there’s drinking on your property, do you accept responsibility for it?”
“I don’t allow drinking,” Poole said. “I lease out my property. Whatever the lessee does, that’s on them.”
“Do you monitor? Did you know that they were drinking?” Krueger replied.
“How [would] you not know about it?” Poole said, explaining that the entire street was filled with people.
“I don’t have any responsibility in the highway,” he said, claiming that law enforcement should have been the one to monitor drinking.
Multiple partygoers also face criminal charges from Alcohol Law Enforcement for drinking underage and for DWI.
Orange County District Attorney Jeff Nieman explained the maximum punishment for aiding and abetting underage drinking, a misdemeanor, is 120 days in jail “if someone has an extensive prior record and receives the maximum punishment.”
WRAL Investigates found Poole had been charged in 2019 with aiding and abetting drinking, but the charge was dismissed by the district attorney’s office, prior to Nieman taking over.
“It’s something that happens from time to time, unfortunately,” he said. “We subpoenaed an essential witness, and then we got back service that that person was no longer with the law enforcement agency that they were with … We made a motion to continue to try to locate that person. That motion to continue was denied. And at that point, the rules require that we dismiss the case.”
WRAL Investigates asked if that could happen again.
“That can always happen,” Nieman said. “The burden is on us to prove the case.”
WRAL News previously reported on an October 2018 shooting at Poole's venue, in which an 18-year-old was killed.
At the time, he told WRAL News he did not think he had any responsibility for what happened.