RALEIGH, N.C. — Potentially facing years in prison over accusations that he ran an absentee ballot scheme to fraudulently boost Republican politicians in 2016 and 2018, North Carolina political operative McCrae Dowless rejected a plea deal in court Monday morning.
He appears set to fight the charges and could go to trial next summer.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has charged Dowless with 13 felonies. Most are related to the 2018 election in which Dowless was hired to help Mark Harris, a Baptist preacher from Charlotte who was running for Congress as a Republican in the 9th Congressional District, which at the time stretched from the Charlotte suburbs east to Bladen County.
On Monday Freeman said she has offered Dowless a plea deal in which he would agree not to work on elections in the future, but receive little prison time, if he pleads guilty to all but one of the charges he’s facing.
Dowless has already been sentenced to six months in federal prison for fraudulently taking Social Security disability payments while also working for various political campaigns in southeastern North Carolina. He made that plea deal in June, The News & Observer reported.
Freeman said Monday her offer included a year in prison that would run concurrently to Dowless’ federal sentence — meaning if he took the deal, he would only spend an extra six months behind bars in addition to the six-month sentence he is about to begin for the disability fraud.
Dowless shot it down.
“We are preparing our defenses now,” said his attorney, Drew Sprague of Raleigh.
Dowless pleaded not guilty to all charges Monday.
In a confusing series of events Monday morning, many in court heard Sprague say “guilty” to one set of charges, sending a low rumble of murmurs throughout the otherwise silent courtroom. Freeman later said that was a mistake, though, and would be corrected later.
There is still time for the situation to change. Dowless is scheduled to begin his federal prison sentence in a little over two weeks on Dec. 1, and Freeman said she would keep her offer on the table until then.
“If convicted he certainly could face a multiple-year sentence,” she said.
Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory addressed Dowless directly about that Monday, making sure he knew that he is facing a potentially long stint in prison if he rejects the plea deal but is later found guilty at trial.
“Your exposure is significant,” he said, noting the multiple felony charges.
Dowless told him he understood.
Harris initially appeared to have won his congressional race in 2018 against Democrat Dan McCready. But state elections officials didn’t certify the results and instead investigated reports of absentee ballot fraud, which they said pointed to Dowless, a longtime political insider in rural Bladen County.
After a monthslong investigation and multiple days of hearings that made national news, Harris agreed that the election should be redone and that he would not run a second time.
Elections officials then sent their findings to Freeman for potential criminal charges. She cleared Harris of any crimes last year, after earlier leveling charges against Dowless and six others who allegedly worked with him.
Earlier this year The New York Times podcast “Serial” published a five-episode series that looked into not only Dowless and his work for Republicans, but also the Democratic-affiliated group Bladen Improvement Association. That group has been accused by Republicans of using many of the same tactics, although no one has been charged.
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