NC-SEN, NC-01: Links between convicted sex offender, state GOP leadership may complicate candidacies
Several of the state Republican Party’s major candidates, including U.S. Senate nominee Michael Whatley, face a brewing intraparty revolt ignited by their ties to a convicted sex offender-turned-party leader and financial backer of GOP campaigns.
Whatley, former chairman of the state and national Republican Party, is at the center of the spreading revolt after championing the rise to power of Harvey L. West Jr. Whatley appointed West to lead the GOP’s 1st Congressional District committee in the state’s eastern corner, and to head the party’s powerful Plan of Organization committee, which effectively controls rulemaking.
West, 54, was a 28-year-old police officer in Washington, a small town in Beaufort County near the Outer Banks, in 1999 when he was arrested and charged with the statutory rape of three girls, two aged 14 and one aged 16. The charge is among the state’s most serious felonies and is defined legally as sexual intercourse with a person aged 15 or younger and the perpetrator is at least six years older. Consent is not a defense.
West agreed to plead guilty to 16 lesser charges of taking indecent liberties with a child and served six years in prison. His plea agreement also required that, upon completing the sentence, he be included on the North Carolina sex-offender registry for a minimum of 10 years.
https://avlwatchdog.org/democracy-watch-links-between-convicted-sex-offender-state-gop-leadership-may-complicate-candidacies/
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