When Kenneth Moore moved back to this Halifax County town a year ago, he hoped to trade in the street violence of Philadelphia for the peace and safety he remembered from growing up in this Eastern North Carolina. But Moore hasn’t been able to find that since arriving back in the rural town [Continue Reading...]
The federal agriculture department has opened an ongoing investigation into state Rep. Stephen LaRoque’s two economic development non-profits, a spokeswoman for the agency confirmed. The Kinston-based non-profits – the East Carolina Development Company and Piedmont Development Company – have taken in $8 million in federal funding since 1997, as part of [Continue Reading...]
The nation’s largest for-profit virtual education company quietly took steps this week to open up an online charter school in North Carolina that would subsist off of public funds and siphon off profits to Wall Street investors. The move comes as the company, K12, Inc., faces mounting questions in others states [Continue Reading...]
Attempts by the state legislature to pass local bills requiring voters in some, but not all, counties to produce photo identification at the polls would fail to meet the constitutional guarantee of equal protection, according to a recent analysis by the N.C. Attorney General’s Office. The state Department of Justice, in a Nov. [Continue Reading...]
Lawmakers should conduct a bipartisan ethics investigation into the business dealings of state Rep. Stephen LaRoque, a top Democrat in the legislature said today. House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, the Democratic leader in the Republican-controlled N.C. House of Representatives, wants a bipartisan committee to look into Stephen LaRoque, an embattled Kinston Republican lawmaker [Continue Reading...]
State Rep. Stephen LaRoque’s federally-funded non-profit will pay thousands in contempt of court fines as part of the state lawmaker’s agreement to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against a political opponent. LaRoque, a Kinston Republican, dismissed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday that he filed a year ago against the state Democratic Party and Van Braxton, [Continue Reading...]
Behind the golf resorts, upscale retirement villages and equestrian farms that dot Moore County is a worsening economic reality for thousands barely making it in one of the state’s most affluent counties. The county in North Carolina’s Sandhills has a skyrocketing poverty rate growing at a clip that’s been surpassed by only four other counties [Continue Reading...]
A federal tax return for Stephen LaRoque’s nonprofit didn’t disclose a loan given to the lawmaker’s private company last year, despite the IRS asking if the nonprofit’s leaders benefitted from the charity. The loan’s omission on the tax forms could put LaRoque, a Kinston Republican serving as a co-chair of the state legislature’s [Continue Reading...]
Failure is not an option. Christy Zemcik used to hang that quote in her middle-school classroom, to inspire her students. Now, she uses it as a daily mantra to get her through her grim reality of being jobless, homeless and broke. Zemcik, of Charlotte, has been out of work since being laid off [Continue Reading...]
With a gun strapped to his hip and a hat emblazoned with “ICE,” Tommie Rand Pierce told hundreds of immigrants in North Carolina that, for a fee, he could get them the legal status they wanted. But federal authorities, notified of Pierce’s dealing by an attorney with the N.C. Justice Center, now [Continue Reading...]
N.C. State Rep. Stephen LaRoque tapped a federally-funded non-profit he ran to loan his own company money, according to documents filed in the Lenoir County Courthouse this week. LaRoque Management Group, the for-profit company LaRoque owns, received a $200,000 loan at zero-percent interest in July 2010 from East Carolina Development Company, according to [Continue Reading...]
State Rep. Stephen LaRoque had plenty to say at Tuesday’s press conference, but still managed to evade questions about how much he personally profits from running two federally-funded economic development non-profit organizations. “No taxpayer money has been used to pay for any of my salaries,” LaRoque said. LaRoque, a Kinston Republican in a [Continue Reading...]
N.C. Rep. Stephen LaRoque is ready to respond to a recent investigation that uncovered questionable financial and management practices at his two federally-funded non-profits. But, NC Policy Watch won’t be allowed at the Tuesday press conference that LaRoque said he plans on holding.LaRoque would not say where the press conference would be held. [Continue Reading...]
KINSTON—As N.C. Rep. Stephen LaRoque tells it on the campaign trail, both state and federal government are too big, wasteful of taxpayers’ money and in the way of private business. “Government can’t be all things to all people,” said LaRoque, a conservative Republican from Kinston, in a televised debate before his 2010 re-election. [Continue Reading...]
N.C. Policy Watch investigative reporter Sarah Ovaska spent two months looking into N.C. Rep. Stephen LaRoque’s financial connections with his non-profits before publishing this report. Data came from a host of sources—interviews with officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office, past and current board members, experts in the laws governing non-profits as [Continue Reading...]
