No prison time for former NC lawmaker who siphoned money from campaign

Former Rep. David Lewis used his campaign accounts for cash flow at his family farm, then paid the money back, feds say.

Posted 3:39 p.m. Aug 17, 2021 — Updated 3:56 p.m. Aug 17, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former state Rep. David Lewis got two years on supervised release and a $1,000 fine, but no prison time, from a federal judge Tuesday for using his campaign fundraising operation as cash flow at his farm.

Lewis, R-Harnett, resigned last year and pleaded guilty to lying to his bank and failing to file a tax return after federal investigators discovered he took hundreds of thousands of dollars out of his campaign accounts for personal use, hiding the transactions at one point by making them look like payments to the North Carolina Republican Party.

In reality, the money flowed through an entity he'd created called "NC GOP Inc." Lewis paid all of the money back, federal investigators said. Lewis said after he was caught that he was trying to save his family farm.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina cut a plea deal with Lewis in the case and recommended he not face jail time, saying his "criminal conduct was both serious and willful," but neither his campaign nor any other financial institution suffered a loss.

The case against Lewis wasn't explicitly tied to insurance magnate Greg Lindberg's bribery conviction, but it was handled by the same U.S. Attorney's Office. It appears investigators looked into Lewis' finances because he took a $500,000 loan from a man named John Gray, who was later indicted and convicted for aiding Lindberg's bribery scheme.

Lewis was never accused of accepting bribes. He said at the time that Gray was a friend and that the loan, secured by multiple family properties, was another indication of his farm's financial troubles.

Lewis was sentenced Tuesday morning in a federal courthouse in Charlotte. WRAL News was not in the courtroom, but the U.S. Attorney's Office passed along details of his sentencing.

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