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A domestic violence prevention program state lawmakers initially funded with $3.5 million in 2020 that had been the subject of a federal investigation is now being looked at by Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.
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Freeman said she asked the State Bureau of Investigation in November to open a criminal probe.
“I requested that the SBI open an investigation into the expenditures of monies that were appropriated to Caitlyn’s Courage to establish the domestic violence monitoring program,” Freeman told The News & Observer.
She provided no other details. It’s the second investigation she’s requested of the SBI into state lawmakers’ activities in less than a year.
SBI spokesman Chad Flowers confirmed in an email the SBI’s Professional Standards Unit has an active investigation into the Caitlyn’s Courage funding, but provided no other details.
Caitlyn’s Courage is a nonprofit in Pitt County founded by the family of Laura Caitlyn Whitehurst, 25, after her ex-boyfriend killed her in 2019. The nonprofit sought the money to create an electronic monitoring program to help domestic violence victims keep a safe distance from the people accused of attacking them. It continues to operate, and has drawn praise from judicial officials.
But the funding drew scrutiny because the legislation included specifics about the equipment needed that limited the number of companies that could compete. It also did not require the typical bid process. The N&O reported on those and other concerns in February 2021.
Jordan Hennessy, a former legislative aide and friend of the Whitehurst family, and Marion Warren, a former director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, had helped write the legislation.
The contract went to Tarheel Monitoring of Wilmington, which has two ties to then-House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican who is now a congressman. The wife of Tarheel Monitoring’s owner made two campaign contributions to Moore, including $3,000 in June 2019. State records also show Raleigh attorney Gene Davis, a close friend of Moore’s who has shared legal clients with him, reported an ownership in an offshoot of the business several years ago.
In June 2024, a federal grand jury subpoenaed the N.C. Department of Public Safety for records related to Caitlyn’s Courage. The department was the pass-through agency for the funding.
At about the time of the subpoenas, Hennessy revised statements of economic interest that he had filed in 2023 and 2024 to include a financial interest in Monotec, an electronic monitoring business which listed the same address as Tarheel Monitoring.
In subsequent months, the grand jury issued subpoenas related to two other state appropriations.
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One involved a dredging contract that Dare County officials gave to a newly formed company that Hennessy now runs. It was formed by Whitehurst’s father, Judson, a Greenville businessman. The other was for an affordable housing project funded by state lawmakers that Dare County officials initially awarded to another newly formed company that Hennessy and Warren both had a financial interest in. That money was later returned to the legislature.
By mid-2025, there was little indication that the investigation was continuing. The assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, Dennis Duffy, left and began working for the state Attorney General’s Office. U.S. Attorney Michael Easley Jr., who served under Democratic President Joe Biden, had stepped down with President Donald Trump taking office.
Trump nominated attorney Ellis Boyle for the post. He has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He has not returned messages regarding the investigation.
Hennessy, Warren and Tarheel Monitoring officials could not be reached by phone or text. Hennessy now serves on the Coastal Resources Commission. Warren is now the legislative liaison for UNC Wilmington.
Whitehurst said in a phone interview the last time he heard from someone was in the summer of 2024, when an FBI agent paid him a visit and later talked with him on the phone. It’s a mystery to him what was inappropriate about the funding, Whitehurst said.
This year, state lawmakers in their budget law shifted the program’s administration from the state Criminal Justice Information Network to the SBI. The budget shuts down the network, which had operated within the public safety department.
Freeman’s decision to investigate the funding for Caitlyn’s Courage came two months after she asked the SBI to investigate the nonprofit group Greater Carolina, another case with ties to the state legislature. That case involves the nonprofit taking state lawmakers on two bourbon trips in the Louisville, Kentucky, area in 2022 and 2024.
Four lobbyists have been charged in that case with a misdemeanor violation of the state’s gift ban. They are accused of getting their clients to help pay for the bourbon tour and failing to report the activity. Search warrants say 11 lawmakers went on the first tour and nine on the second.
Government corruption cases are often handled at the federal level, which has a broader set of laws and tools at hand. Federal grand juries can issue subpoenas to compel the production of documents and testimony, and lying to an FBI agent is a felony.
Some officials, including then-state Attorney General Roy Cooper roughly 20 years ago, have sought to extend those measures to North Carolina to tackle public corruption but have not been successful.
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