The campaign contractor, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., was among five people charged in Wake County, North Carolina, in connection with misconduct related to absentee ballots. Dowless faces the gravest charges, including three counts of felonious obstruction of justice.
Although Dowless has come under scrutiny for his work for Mark Harris, last year’s Republican candidate for Congress in the 9th District, the charges that were unsealed Wednesday are not connected to the 2018 general election, which investigators are still examining. Instead, this week’s indictment was tied to the 2016 election, when Dowless worked for a different candidate, and the 2018 primary, when he worked for Harris.
But the indictment, which was made public six days after the North Carolina State Board of Elections ordered a new contest in the 9th District, describes many of the same activities that investigators believe played out again last fall. In one section of the indictment, for instance, Dowless is accused of directing his associates to harvest absentee ballots from voters and instructing workers to sign ballot envelopes as if they had been legitimate witnesses. North Carolina law typically forbids third parties from handling those ballots.
In the wake of last week’s evidentiary hearing in Raleigh, in which state regulators heard days of testimony about Dowless’ work and reputation, it was all but certain that he would face prosecution. In an interview Friday, Lorrin Freeman, district attorney for Wake County, said she expected a grand jury to bring its first charges within a month.
On Tuesday, the grand jurors acted. Freeman, who began investigating Dowless’ activities in Bladen County after the local district attorney recused himself, said in an email Wednesday afternoon that Dowless had been arrested in the morning and that authorities were transporting him to Raleigh for processing.
In the months since Harris’ narrow apparent victory — by a 905-vote margin — began to draw attention and investigation, Dowless has been among the central figures of inquiry. He worked for Democratic and Republican candidates over the years and was elected to a low-level office himself in Bladen County, but his shadowy tactics and criminal convictions for perjury and fraud transformed him into an object of suspicion.
Last week, Dowless, through his lawyer, declined to testify before the elections board.
Harris, who has denied any personal knowledge of wrongdoing by Dowless or his associates, acknowledged that he hired Dowless in April 2017. But last Thursday, faced with days of evidence of wrongdoing by campaign workers and after offering “incorrect” testimony to the elections board, Harris called for a new election.
He said Tuesday that he would not run in the new contest, which has not been scheduled. His Democratic rival from last year, Dan McCready, entered the race Friday.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.