A North Carolina political operative at the center of a 2018 ballot-harvesting scandal was sentenced to six months in prison Thursday for financial crimes separate from the election case.
Leslie McCrae Dowless was accused of concealing that he was receiving income as a consultant while also receiving monthly disability payments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The financial charges prosecutors brought against Dowless, of Bladen County, were the result of a state investigation into election fraud in the 2018 9th Congressional District race. Dowless, 65, is accused of running an absentee ballot scheme in that election, The News & Observer previously reported. He faces separate charges in that case, which is ongoing and led by Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.
In June, Dowless pleaded guilty to charges of theft of government property and Social Security fraud and agreed to pay up to $14,000 in restitution for the fraudulent disability payments he received. As part of that plea deal, prosecutors dismissed two other charges related to his financial crimes.
Dowless was set to be sentenced Aug. 25 but was hospitalized hours before, The Charlotte Observer previously reported, and his hearing was rescheduled for Sept. 2.
FINANCIAL CRIMES
In 2017 and 2018, Dowless cashed more than $135,000 in payments for his work on at least two campaigns while also collecting Social Security disability payments, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. One of the campaigns Dowless worked for at the time was Republican candidate Mark Harris of Charlotte, who was running for U.S. House in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.
Harris appeared to narrowly win that race, but in 2019, the North Carolina State Board of Elections overturned the results of the election because of irregularities. Dowless was then charged with obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of possession of absentee ballot for a scheme that allegedly involved collecting absentee ballots from voters and, in some cases, filling out empty ballots.
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