Sweetheart deal from The Feds, but NO campaign finance filings for last 14 months

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As long as you have a campaign fund open, you are required to update the reporting on said fund. Former state Rep. David Lewis still has his campaign fund open, but it hasn’t been updated since the second quarter of 2020.

Lewis resigned from the NC House in August 2020.

Here’s a little refresher for folks who may not remember the details of Lewis’s departure from the North Carolina House.  Here’s the federal court action over alleged monkey business with his campaign funds.  When it all shook out, Lewis got supervised release, a $1,000 fine, and had to pledge to behave for two consecutive years.  (*Talk about ruling from the bench with an iron fist!*)

Back to the Lewis campaign reports. The last receipt recorded was a $250 contribution from Dunn businessman Don Wellons on June 4, 2020. The last payment recorded was a May 5, 2020 check to The Winiker Law Firm of Schaumburg, Illinois.   Has anything been happening since then?  Even if it hasn’t,  Lewis is still obligated to follow the campaign finance reporting schedule.

There is also a puzzling entry on the payments section of the Q2 2020 Lewis campaign report.  Something called Anthony & Associates got paid $56,410.77 by the Lewis campaign.  The expenditures were IDed as “campaign consulting.”  The address given for Anthony & Associates appeared to be for a Raleigh residence.

For years, Lewis has been using the services of his good friend Dee Stewart, who heads up the Raleigh-based Stewart Group.  (They are also listed on the report as providing “campaign consulting.”)

We did a business search on the secretary of state’s website.  According to that search,  only   one business named Anthony & Associates ever registered to do business in North Carolina.  That occurred in September 2005.  It was dissolved on December 18, 2020.  (Remember, Lewis left the House in August 2020.)

The word “Intuit” is notated on a few of the Anthony & Associates entries on the report.  Could they have been helping with accounting? If so, why would Lewis be paying Amy Ellis, a Raleigh-based campaign finance expert who actually prepared Lewis’s reports?

It sounds like the Feds let Lewis off the hook when there were a lot more questions to be answered.