The N.C. Highway Patrol captain who once headed former Gov. Mike Easley's security detail has been removed from his supervisory post after the state's crime-control boss learned that some of Easley's flight records were deleted.
Gov. Beverly Perdue says that copies of the Highway Patrol's internal-affairs investigation of missing flight records and Easley's travels are confidential and can't be released.
Perdue said yesterday that she has been told that the investigation is privileged information under state law. Her comment was in response to a reporter's question about the report.
The report and an earlier patrol inquiry examined how records on Easley's travels in 2005 went missing. Both found that a patrol supervisor had not intentionally removed or destroyed the records.
Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young declined to release the second report late last week. The records are part of a broader state and federal investigation into activities involving Easley and former first lady Mary Easley.
Young put Capt. Alan Melvin back on administrative duty and requested an independent investigation of the missing flight records of Easley's travels. Young was concerned about new information concerning the missing records that a highway-patrol secretary told the Raleigh News & Observer, patrol spokesman Capt. Everett Clendenin said.
Diane Bumgardner, a secretary assigned to the governor's security detail, said that Melvin had told her in February 2006 to download flight records from 2003 to 2005 onto a computer disk and then give it to him, according to an internal highway patrol inquiry. Melvin told Bumgardner to then delete the files to "free up space on the computer." Young "had not heard that information before," Clendenin said.
The internal inquiry, followed by an internal-affairs investigation, determined that Melvin had not intended to remove or destroy the records.
Newly appointed patrol Cmdr. Randy Glover had decided last month to put Melvin back on the job. The patrol said Friday that Melvin had returned to duty as a supervisor in the unit that maintains computer networks.
Melvin led Mike Easley's security detail from 2003 to 2007. He could not be reached for comment. Clendenin said that Melvin does not want to be interviewed because of the federal grand-jury investigation.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement