NC attorneys admit guilt in federal court to scheme involving fraudulent PAC

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Some of you who have been around the NC political wars for a while may remember the names Nate Pendley and Jack Daly.  Both were renowned for their hard-hitting guerilla tactics against liberals.  Pendley (R) ran for the NC Supreme Court in 1996. Jack Daly (R) also gained notoriety for taking incumbent state auditor Ralph Campbell (D) down to the wire in the 1996 general election.

(Moore County Republicans may remember Jack and his wife Kay from their short stay here.  Both were active in the local party while here.  Kay, a former NCGOP spokesperson, ended up running in the 2016 race for the 13th congressional district that introduced us to Ted Budd.)

Well, Jack and Nate had some recent court action that made headlines:

U.S. Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad for the Eastern District of Wisconsin reported that Jack Daly (51) and Nathanael Pendley (61) each admitted guilt on June 9th and 12th, 2023, respectively, to conspiring to carry out mail fraud and deceive the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”).

Court documents revealed that the Draft PAC, set up by Daly and Pendley, was at the core of the conspiracy. This PAC was supposedly created to get David Clarke, Jr., the ex-Sheriff of Milwaukee County, to run for a Senate seat. However, when asking for donations to the Draft PAC, Daly and Pendley lied about how the money would be utilized; instead of using it to convince Clarke to run, the funds were used to generate more money for their own benefit, totaling over $1.6 million.

Court records indicate that, after they had become aware of Clarke’s public retraction of running for a Senate seat and had labelled the Draft PAC a “scam,” Daly and Pendley continued to invite contributions. When Clarke questioned them about the Draft PAC’s solicitations, the two misinformed him about the involvement of a new Treasurer. Additionally, they provided false and deceptive information to the Federal Election Commission, putting in a post-dated FEC Form 1 that named the PAC’s intern, Z.Z., as its Treasurer, replacing Daly. As Daly and Pendley knew, Z.Z. was not assuming any obligations as Treasurer.

Judge J.P. Stadtmueller of the District Court will preside over the sentencing of both defendants in September 2023.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an inquiry into this topic and Assistant United States Attorneys Kevin Knight and Benjamin Taibleson are handling the prosecution.