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Independent panel to investigate Easley records
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Published: August 26, 2009
RALEIGH - RALEIGH -- The state Highway Patrol has appointed an independent panel of attorneys to investigate why the agency is missing travel records of former Gov. Mike Easley and his family from 2005, officials said Wednesday.
Reuben Young, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, said he and Gov. Beverly Perdue "are determined to do everything in our power to find the answers regarding the 2005 records."
"I find it unacceptable that the 2005 travel records from the prior administration have not been recovered," Perdue, a Democrat, said in a statement.
An internal inquiry, followed by an internal affairs investigation, had determined that Capt. Alan Melvin, who was the head of Easley's security detail, had not intended to remove or destroy the records. But Young grew concerned again after a Highway Patrol staffer told the News & Observer of Raleigh that Melvin told her in February 2006 to provide him a computer disk of flight records and then delete the files to "free up space on the computer."
Melvin has been removed from his supervisory post and assigned to administrative duty. Federal authorities investigating Easley subpoenaed Melvin to testify before a grand jury in May. Investigators pursuing the wide-ranging probe have also sought information from the state auditor, the Division of Motor Vehicles and North Carolina State University, among others.
The panel of attorneys that will investigate the matter are: Willis Whichard, former state Supreme Court justice and former law school dean at Campbell University; Robert Morgan, a former senator and former state attorney general; and Ralph Walker, a former judge and former director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
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