GREENVILLE — Jeff Carver simply stopped being told of the board meeting schedule.
The Johnston County commissioner was on the board of directors for former Rep. Stephen LaRoque’s private non-profit, East Carolina Development Company, from the beginning.
He attended his last board meeting in 2000, and said the reason was he stopped being told when the meetings were taking place and in a de facto fashion stopped being a board member.
Before that happened, he cast the only “no” vote in the history of the board, standing against a proposal to purchase property made available because of hurricane damage. Questioned by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Duffy, Carver said he didn’t feel ECDC should be involved in real estate.
He also said he was involved in a “no” vote by the board granting LaRoque an income equal to 3 percent of the amount of assets managed. A senior vice president with First Citizens Bank, Carver said he would have been against the proposal on principle.
“I would never have been involved in that or paid him that kind of money,” Carver said.
He did say he voted to pay LaRoque $18,000 near the beginning of ECDC, and to increase the amount to $48,000 later on, because the amount of work grew.
The defense contends LaRoque is entitled to 3 percent of the amount of loans managed, and asserts this is why he’s innocent of charges he stole from the company.
Earlier in Day 3 of LaRoque’s fraud trial, Lisa Talley of the U.S. Department of Agriculture testified she had been unaware of a $150,000 loan to the LaRoque Management Group, which handled ECDC loans.
A 2009 internal audit, submitted in 2011, showed two loan categories and a line item for “other,” listing $150,000 as an “organizational cost.”
“No, we would not have known about that,” Talley said. “I would not have known about those loans.”
On an informal balance sheet given to Talley after her site visit in February 2011, a line item for “other loans” showed an amount at that point of $200,000.
“He did not clearly define what it was,” Talley said.
Carver said his notion of organization costs, when the board voted to spend money in the late ’90s, was of office supplies, computer hardware, phones and the like.
The defense countered that the loan process is inherently confusing. A USDA audit introduced into evidence reported conflicting regulatory language leads companies like ECDC to view revolved funds — money coming back to the company from loan recipients — as unregulated.
Defense attorney Elliot Abrams pointed out the audit’s opinion that money could be used for organizational costs.
Kinston Mayor B.J. Murphy, who worked for LaRoque from January to June 2009, said he was unaware of a $150,000 loan from ECDC to LaRoque Management Group. He said the reason he left LMG was a disagreement with the former lawmaker over some political billboards, but would not elaborate.
Asked by the defense, Murphy said he knew LaRoque to work hard for ECDC and the companies receiving the loans.
Murphy won election to mayor in 2009 but is not running for reelection this year.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.