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A criminal investigation into Greater Carolina, a politically connected nonprofit that took lawmakers on two bourbon tours in Kentucky, has expanded to examine its ties with a Florida developer seeking to build a liquor warehouse for the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.
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“The scope of the investigation has expanded to determine what, if any, involvement those associated with Greater Carolina had with the M Group,” Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Wednesday.
Last week, five more search warrants became public in the investigation. One of them shows expenses at a Boca Raton, Florida, resort that is five miles from the M Group Companies’ headquarters, and less than a mile from the home of M Group CEO Patrick Marino.
One of the expenses identified in that search warrant is for lodging for one night on April 24, 2024. A three-day bourbon tour in the Louisville, Kentucky area for lawmakers, lobbyists and tour sponsors began the next day.
Marino acknowledged making a donation to Greater Carolina in a short email response to The News & Observer on Wednesday, but said that’s as far as it went. He did not say how much the donation was for, when he made it, or why.
“Greater Carolina and M Group Companies have absolutely no affiliation or correlation,” he said. “I have previously donated to Greater Carolina on one occasion. Other than that donation, I have no involvement with any of the corporate or regulatory structure of Greater Carolina.”
An M Group subsidiary, Mooresville BTR, had hired Greater Carolina Director David Coble to serve as its local representative on a residential development in Mooresville. The News & Observer previously reported how the company quietly won $15 million from state lawmakers to pay for a connector road it pledged to build.
One of the subsidiary’s lobbyists, Kevin Wilkinson, is among four charged with a misdemeanor violation of the state’s gift ban to state officials as part of the bourbon tour investigation. The search warrants say Wilkinson’s criminal actions pertained to a different client, liquor company Sazerac.
Last year, former NC Rep. Jason Saine registered as a lobbyist for Mooresville BTR. He helped found Mooresville-based Greater Carolina, the search warrants say, and plan the tours, which he also attended. Saine, a Lincolnton Republican, was a former chief budget writer in the House.
Freeman declined to identify who benefited from specific expenditures, but she said none of the “current” lawmakers who took the bourbon tours did. She declined to comment on whether Saine benefited.
Saine resigned from the legislature roughly four months after the 2024 bourbon tour was outed by a distillery employee who complained on Reddit about the group’s unruly behavior. Freeman later disclosed there was an earlier trip in 2022. Eleven lawmakers attended the first; nine the second.
The newly available search warrants, first reported by WRAL, show expenses that appear to go beyond the nonprofit’s stated purpose, which is issue advocacy and the support of political candidates, the warrants said.
Among the expenses identified in the search warrants are:
All the purchases were made from credit cards assigned to Coble, who is identified in the nonprofit’s tax returns as its director, but is identified in the warrants as its treasurer. Coble is a Mooresville businessman and a former town commissioner who has occasionally served as co-host of Saine’s radio show.
Coble and Saine, who became a lobbyist in late 2024, could not be reached for comment by phone or text.
Freeman said she expects to file additional charges in the case. The newly released batch of search warrants say the spending “may be evidence of conduct and activities constituting the crime of Obtaining Property by False Pretense by individuals associated with Greater Carolina, Inc.” That is a felony under state law.
She said she does not anticipate further charges against the four lobbyists whose clients helped pay for the bourbon tour expenses. They are accused of violating the state’s ban on gifts to state officials, a misdemeanor charge.
She also said that Sarah Newby, a state Republican Party official who had a fundraising contract with Greater Carolina, has cooperated fully with the investigation. She is the daughter of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby.
“At this time, we do not have evidence that would support a finding that she knew how money was being spent by the organization,” Freeman said.
Last month, The News & Observer reported on the ties between the M Group Companies, Greater Carolina and the bourbon tours.
Coble was the local representative for Mooresville BTR on a residential development in Mooresville when it told the town in 2022 it would pay for a connector road to ease traffic issues. The next year, state lawmakers inserted $15 million into the final version of the 2023 state budget to largely cover the road’s cost.
One of the subjects brought up in the 2022 tour, according to the search warrants, was the need for a new ABC warehouse to store and distribute liquor. Last year, House Majority Leader Brenden Jones won approval for a last minute amendment in a bill on building construction efficiencies that would create a public-private partnership option for building the warehouse.
Jones told House members that ABC Commission Chairman Hank Bauer asked for the amendment. Bauer said through a spokesman that he hadn’t, and several weeks after the amendment, a lobbyist for the M Group subsidiary set up two meetings.
The first was between Bauer and Jones, in which Bauer claimed Jones told him the House would only support the public-private partnership option. The second, two weeks later, was between Bauer and M Group officials seeking to build the warehouse. In both cases, Bauer said he told them he did not prefer that option.
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Instead, the commission supports what Bauer calls a much cheaper option – a $310 million loan that is included in wide-ranging ABC legislation that drew bipartisan support in the Senate this session.
The House later rejected that legislation. Demi Dowdy, a deputy chief of staff for Speaker Destin Hall, said earlier this month that the chamber would not take up the warehouse legislation this session.
Jones, a Columbus County Republican, said in an email from his office’s counsel that he had not gone on the bourbon tours. His staff counsel, Kyle Offerman, also sent one slide from a presentation he said Bauer gave at a meeting on Feb. 13, 2024. Offerman said “stakeholders” in the liquor business attended, but did not say whether it was public or where it was held.
That slide presents options for building a new warehouse. Among them: “Lease new warehouse from yearly permitting fees. General Assembly would have to approve ABC Commission to use permitting fees for yearly lease payment.”
It does not mention a public-private partnership. Nor has the commission supported that option. In executive summaries the commission has given to lawmakers since October 2024, it has proposed the state pay for the warehouse via a grant from the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund, often referred to as the SCIF, or by authorizing the commission to seek a loan.
Bauer also asked the House Alcoholic Beverage Control Committee on Feb. 26, 2025, to support legislation for the SCIF grant to build the warehouse. He made no mention of a public-private partnership option.
“So we’re asking for a SCIF to build this warehouse, and we’ll pay that back out of permit fees,” he told the committee.
Bauer has produced a spreadsheet showing the public-private partnership option would cost more than $500 million, and the state would not own the warehouse. He has called that option “horrible.”
Jones is among the beneficiaries of roughly $500,000 in campaign donations that people with ties to the M Group and its subsidiary have made to Republican state legislative candidates over the past four years, state election records show.
Jones has not accepted The N&O’s repeated requests for interviews. On Thursday, Offerman confirmed in an email response that Jones met with Bauer and that Bauer told Jones he opposed the public-private option. Offerman did not report what Jones told Bauer in that meeting.
Offerman also said the M Group “meetings” occurred after Jones’ amendment. He did not say what Jones knew about those meetings.
Jones has yet to confirm that Bauer asked for his amendment. Nor has he produced information The N&O previously requested showing how much a public-private partnership option would cost.
In an earlier email Offerman sent Wednesday, Jones attacked The N&O’s reporting, calling it a “hit piece.”
“Consistent with my prior statements, I have always complied with all applicable statutes and ethical standards under North Carolina law while serving in office,” he said.
“Your previous stories on this matter are filled with unsubstantiated innuendo. Rather than follow the facts wherever they lead, your outlet repeatedly begins with a predetermined narrative and then relies on hearsay and selective reporting to manufacture a story around it.”
On Wednesday, state Sen. Tim Moffitt, a Henderson County Republican, told The News & Observer the warehouse controversy has tied up the rest of the changes the Senate sought regarding alcoholic beverage regulation.
Moffitt is the only lawmaker who disclosed going on the bourbon tours on his statement of economic interest, according to the search warrants. He said he only went on the 2022 tour.
Moffitt said he has had no involvement with the M Group and did not see anyone associated with them at the 2022 tour. He sponsored the Senate legislation that includes the commission’s plan for a loan to build the warehouse.
Moffitt said he “did not really become aware of the M Group until last year.”
“I’ve not spoken to anyone from the M Group. I’ve not spoken to … any of the lobbyists that represent them, nor did I receive any campaign contributions from them,” he said. “I’ve really not been part of that cool kids club when it comes to this.”
Government watchdogs say the Greater Carolina investigation and other reports about undisclosed gifts given to lawmakers show a need for more transparency. State law does not require them to report gifts from in-state entities such as Greater Carolina that have not registered lobbyists.
Hall, the house speaker “is always open to considering measures to increase accountability, but so far nothing on this topic has come across his desk,” Dowdy said in an email.
As leader of that chamber, Hall, a Caldwell County Republican, would have more clout than many to make that happen if he filed such legislation or amended it to an existing bill.
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Staff writer Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan contributed to this report.