TABOR CITY
Neighbors of state Sen. R.C. Soles Jr. made dozens of calls in recent years telling police that they heard gunshots, screams and loud arguments coming from his home or law office, a newspaper's analysis found.
Records show police responded to at least 40 emergency calls to Soles' Tabor City home and law office in the past four years, the Raleigh News & Observer reported yesterday. Most of the Columbus County 911 calls came from Soles' neighbors reporting attempted burglaries, suspected assaults and complaints of young people on mo-peds circling Soles' house.
Soles himself typically calls the cell phones of individual police officers, rather than 911, when there is trouble, the paper said.
A special prosecutor from the office of Attorney General Roy Cooper is weighing whether to file criminal charges after Soles, 74, shot Thomas Kyle Blackburn, 22, a former client who regularly visited the Soles' secluded waterfront home. Soles said he fired because Blackburn tried to kick in his door on Aug. 23.
"Those young men have, in essence, been terrorizing him for years," said Joe Cheshire, Soles' defense attorney.
The State Bureau of Investigation had already been checking into a former client's claim, later recanted, that Soles fondled him when he was 15 and then later paid him $1,000 to keep quiet. Stacey Scott, 27, said he was high on drugs when he made the allegation.
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