Even MORE federal subpoenas touching the Raleigh crowd?
Back in August we heard about subpoenas being issued to UNCW regarding dealings with former judge and current GOP operative Marion Warren. Now, things appear to be shifting northward:
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed Dare County to produce records related to a former state legislative aide’s two businesses that won a combined $50 million in state money in recent years. Jordan Hennessy is CEO of EJE Dredging Service, a company that won $15 million in 2019 to deepen navigational channels in the Oregon and Hatteras Inlets. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shut down the work two weeks ago, saying much of the dredging took place outside of the permitted channels.
Hennessy is also a principal in Coastal Affordable Housing, a company that won $35 million in 2022 to build affordable housing in Dare County. The county terminated that contract in April after a provision added in the final version of last year’s state budget prevented town governments from having a say in where the housing would go. Several towns had joined in a lawsuit against the state.
Two FBI agents delivered the subpoenas to Dare County on Thursday morning, said County Manager Bobby Outten. One of the subpoenas is to the county commissioners, the other is to the county’s Oregon Inlet Task Force that had been tasked with solving the dredging needs. “They are not investigating us,” Outten said agents told him. “They just needed records.”
These are the third and fourth subpoenas connected to Hennessy’s activities, and they indicate federal authorities are expanding their investigation. In June, the grand jury subpoenaed the N.C. Department of Public Safety for information related to Caitlyn’s Courage, a $3.5 million domestic violence prevention program state lawmakers funded in 2020 with COVID-19 relief money. Hennessy and Marion Warren, a former director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, had drafted much of that legislation, state records show.
Two months later, UNC-Wilmington received a subpoena seeking records related to Warren’s employment as an assistant to the chancellor and executive director of government and external relations. It also demanded records of any payments the university made to Warren, Hennessy, two companies Warren owns, and others connected to a company involved in the domestic violence monitoring program.
Warren is also named in all four subpoenas. Contract documents identify him as a “member-manager” of Coastal Affordable Housing. Two other principals in the company are identified as relevant parties in one of the subpoenas: Aaron Thomas, the CEO of construction company Metcon in Pembroke and Robbie Ferris, a Raleigh architect. […]
DREDGING ISSUES
The latest subpoenas require Dare County and the task force to deliver records to a federal grand jury in Raleigh between Oct. 16 and Oct. 18.
They demand records related to the two businesses that won funding in Dare County and several other connected companies and individuals, including former state Sen. Bill Cook, a Beaufort County Republican who was Hennessy’s boss when they sought the dredging money from state lawmakers. The task force selected the newly formed EJE Dredging Service as the preferred provider shortly after state lawmakers in 2018 gave the county $15 million to help tackle its dredging needs. Dare County records show Hennessy began working for EJE soon after. Hennessy has been EJE Dredging’s CEO for at least two years. […]
