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istrict Attorney Scott Thomas says the State Bureau of Investigation is conducting a full investigation in to surreptitious taping and other allegations of wrongdoing at Oriental’s Town Hall.

The DA told TownDock.net Wednesday afternoon that he and the SBI had done an “initial review” and determined “within the last week” that a full investigation “is justified.”

The SBI will be looking in to the five items the Town cited in a February 25th letter to Thomas.

Thomas stresses that the SBI investigation will center on whether there was any criminal activity. It will not wade in to the personnel strife that beset Town Hall in the past year. That workplace dispute involved Town Manager Randy Cahoon and administrative assistants, Lori Wagoner and Heidi Artley.

On June 1, the Town Board fired Cahoon. At that board meeting, some residents questioned why the board was firing anyone before it got results of the criminal investigation it had requested. (None of the allegations in the investigation involved Cahoon, but were linked to several who wanted him fired.)

Tapings “Stand Out”

Asked if there were any particular wrongdoing on which the SBI investigation would focus, the District Attorney said, “I would think that the thing that would stand out for the SBI would be the illegal taping at Town Hall.”

There are two separate allegations of surreptitious taping. Thomas says both will be pursued.

The District Attorney says the SBI investigator will be looking in to the claim that the February 10th closed-door session of the Oriental Town Board was recorded. The boyfriend of Town Hall employee Lori Wagoner claimed to have been given such a recording which he said he might put on his blog. When the illegality of making such a recording was made clear, no recording was posted on the blog and the Mayor and some of the Town Board suggested it had all been a “hoax”. That question is again open and is one the investigator will probe, according to the DA.

The other illegal taping matter that the investigator will look in to concerns an allegation of surreptitious recording of conversations within the offices of Oriental’s Town Hall. Town Manager Randy Cahoon says he and a Town Commissioner discovered the recordings on the desktop computer of Town Hall employee Lori Wagoner in February. Cahoon was among those recorded and says he did not know the conversations were being recorded. Covert recording of conversations by third-parties is a felony in NC.

Cahoon says many of the recordings on that employee’s desktop computer were deleted the day after the full Town Board had been made aware of them. (Some recordings, however, have been preserved.)

District Attorney Thomas confirms that the Town Hall computers may be a factor in the probe. “If the SBI agent believes it necessary to explore anything on the computer, that will be part of the investigation,” Thomas says. Retrieving the hard drive may be a possibility, he says.

Cahoon: “Very, very good news.”

Even though the investigation is coming after the Town Board fired him, Randy Cahoon, the former Town Manager, says it was “very, very good news” that the SBI would be looking in to the allegations.

He says he has heard several hours of surreptitious recordings that included conversations he had with residents and others visiting Town Hall. If people knew their conversations were going to be recorded, Cahoon says, “no one would come to Town Hall to do business in person.”

The former Town Manager says that surreptitious recording “interferes with people’s sense of security and undermines confidence” in their government. He suggests that “perception will be lingering.”

Other Allegations To Get A Look

In addition to the allegations of wrongful recording, the Town had asked the DA to look in to unauthorized access of Town Hall email accounts, unauthorized release of material from a Town personnel file and using Town computers to post material on to a private website. (For more on these allegations, click here.)

While the five issues outlined in the February 25th letter are the basis of the probe, District Attorney Scott Thomas says that “if anything else arises” in the course of the investigation, the SBI will look in to that as well.

Thomas would not estimate how long the investigation would take, and noted that the SBI agent undertaking it would be responsible for other investigations in the coastal region at the same time.

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Surreptitious recordings by third-parties constitutes a felony in NC under General Statute 15A-27. To read the unabridged statute, click here.

Posted Wednesday June 9, 2010 by Melinda Penkava