After admitting to financial crimes including not paying taxes — as part of a scheme to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from his political supporters for his own personal use — a powerful North Carolina politician will avoid prison.
Instead of prison time, prosecutors say, former GOP Rep. David Lewis will have to pay a $1,000 fine and avoid getting in trouble again for the next two years.
The News & Observer previously reported that he could have faced up to 30 years in prison if he had gone to trial and lost.
Lewis, a Republican from Harnett County, served in the North Carolina General Assembly from 2003 to 2020. He was one of the state’s top-ranking lawmakers until his guilty plea and resignation, which both happened on the same day a year ago.
“As a result of this crime, he lost his political career, whatever pride a congenitally modest man carries, and — in all likelihood — what little remains of the farm and his longstanding livelihood."
Prosecutors wrote in one court filing that Lewis “violated the trust of his donors, voters and constituents when he used his campaign funds for personal and business expenses” — but that they gave him credit for eventually admitting it and taking responsibility.
The News & Observer reported in May that the federal prosecutors who took him down had agreed not to seek any prison time against him, in exchange for his guilty plea and repayment of the $365,000 he took. And on Tuesday, as first reported by WRAL-TV, a federal judge agreed to that deal and sentenced Lewis to no prison time.
Lewis’ charges and plea deal were handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Carolina’s Western District. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the office, Lia Bantavani, confirmed that Lewis was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and will have two years of supervised release.
Before his financial scheme came to light, Lewis chaired the powerful House Rules Committee and was also a top leader on everything related to election law, from voter ID to redistricting.
With such a prominent role, Lewis was also a major political fundraiser. As chair of the Rules Committee, he had vast influence over what bills lived or died at the Legislature. And his campaign finance reports reflect that: Sprinkled among donations from local retirees and farmers in his rural district are bigger checks from CEOs, real estate developers and PACs representing hospitals, airlines, insurance companies and more.
But instead of using that money for his own campaign or to support other Republican politicians, in 2018 Lewis began taking the money for his own use.
He went so far as to set up a bank account for a fake company called NC GOP, Inc., prosecutors said, in order to make it look like he was sending money to the state Republican Party — which would have been legal — when in reality he was taking the money for himself.
Lewis said as part of his plea deal that he took the money in order to prop up his struggling farm. His attorney Josh Howard, who also briefly represented former President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial earlier this year, argued in one court filing that Lewis didn’t deserve to go to prison because he had already been punished enough.
“As a result of this crime, he lost his political career, whatever pride a congenitally modest man carries, and — in all likelihood — what little remains of the farm and his longstanding livelihood,” Howard wrote.
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