Recent publicity about a political action committee whose poll workers used deceptive and illegal tactics to promote a slate of candidates has caused the state Board of Elections to give renewed attention to a complaint against the campaign of Susan Frye, who was elected Forsyth County clerk of superior court in 2010.

The complaint filed by Richard Bethune, treasurer for Republican candidate Jeff Polston, languished for months after being forwarded to the state Board of Elections last July. Frye replaced fellow Democrat Nick Gordon after defeating him in the primary two years ago.

Bethune has accused Frye’s campaign, including treasurer Chris Church, of filing a “false and frivolous campaign report” for the period of July 1 through Oct. 25, 2010.

Bethune wrote that the report showed “$0 in receipts and $0 in expenditures,” adding that “Mr. Church and Ms. Frye obviously knew this report was false as the 3rd quarter was when most of their money was raised and spent going into the November 2010 election.”

After the election, Church filed an amended report indicating that the campaign had, in fact, raised $15,487 and spent $14,022. As treasurer, Church signed a standard certification statement on Oct. 25, 2010 stating “that this report is complete, true and correct and that I have been trained by the NC State Board of Elections.”

NC General Statute § 163-278.32 holds that any statement filed under the requirements of state law regulating contributions and expenditures in political campaigns “shall be signed and certified as true and correct” and that “a certification under this article shall be treated as under oath, and any person making a certification under this article knowing the information to be untrue is guilty of a Class I felony.”

Sheryll Harris, a campaign finance compliance specialist, confirmed last week that the state Board of Elections has received Bethune’s complaint. “We do have a complaint, and, yes, we are investigating,” she said. “We do not have an anticipated completion date.”

Harris said she could not comment on whether the matter would be referred to the five-member state board for action, or to the Forsyth County District Attorney or NC Attorney General for prosecution.

Church and Frye did not return calls for this story.

A Winston-Salem campaign consultant, Church’s other past clients include former congressional candidate Dr. Bruce Peller, Forsyth County Commissioner Everette Witherspoon and Jerry Jordan, a former member of the county board of elections who ran unsuccessfully for district court judge this year.

Church is closely linked with the Forsyth Leadership Political Action Committee. The committee produced a yellow flier during the primary endorsing Peller for the 5th Congressional District, Witherspoon for a House seat, Jordan for judge, Earline Parmon for NC Senate, Walter Dalton for governor and Linda Coleman for lieutenant governor.

Several people reported overhearing poll workers tell voters that those endorsed on the flier were “the Democratic candidates,” implying that those who were not endorsed were not Democrats. The statement was false considering that Jordan, who was a candidate in a nonpartisan judicial race, is a registered Republican. On the second day of early voting, election staff caught poll workers talking to voters inside a buffer zone where campaigning is prohibited and asked them to leave.

Church has said he was only working as a consultant for the committee, but a campaign finance report indicates that his consulting company spent $1,628 on poll-worker salaries and $104 to print fliers as part of the committee’s efforts on behalf of favored candidates.

Peller fired Church after learning about the tactics employed by the committee.

“Because of Chris Church’s involvement, I don’t have any doubt in my mind that this PAC is corrupt, and it’s up to individuals to do what they need to do,” Peller said in April. “I’m glad I’m out of it because Chris Church has been dishonest with me.”

Despite reported efforts by the committee to solicit contributions from at least three candidates, only one came through. The Dalton campaign cut a check for $2,000.

Bethune said the Journal’s coverage of Church’s involvement with the Forsyth Leadership PAC got the attention of the state Board of Elections. He said that Amy Strange, a campaign finance compliance specialist, told him in a phone conversation in early May that “my complaint was being escalated because of what’s going on right now.”

The investigation into whether the Frye campaign filed a false report is only one instance in which candidates and political action committee associated with an alliance of mostly Democratic candidates in Forsyth County have appeared to flout campaign finance law. The other violations appear to have flown below or fallen off the state Board of Elections’ radar.

During the recent primary Peller said Church ran his consulting firm, 5 Star Campaigns, out of his dental office. Peller said Jordan occasionally came by the dental office to work with Church and that one Sunday he arrived to find Witherspoon meeting with Church. Peller also said Church took him by Parmon’s campaign headquarters on West 4th Street and left him waiting while he did some work on one of Parmon’s computers.

Parmon said in a prepared statement before the primary that her campaign “has had no direct involvement with the operational side” of the Forsyth Leadership PAC, and dismissed as “rumors” the notion that she was tied to the committee.

An earlier alliance during the previous election cycle featured some of the same players and a similar use of fliers to promote a slate of candidates. Frye acknowledged in a 2011 interview that she had been part of a “coordinated effort with Ms. Parmon” during the 2010 election. Pamela Johnson, a former elections employee, told YES! Weekly that Parmon’s campaign manager asked her to perform some discrete research for Frye while she was working on the Parmon campaign. Johnson said she saw Witherspoon and another candidate, Jimmie Lee Bonham, at Parmon’s campaign office at the Mutual Life Insurance Building during the campaign. The Parmon, Frye, Witherspoon and Bonham campaigns all made expenditures to a little known, fly-by-night outfit with offices in the same building that was variously known as CDC, CMC and CMC Marketing that provided campaign services.

The Forsyth Leadership PAC is not the first committee with a dubious purpose to promote a slate of candidates in Winston-Salem.

The Winston-Salem Black Political Action Committee was organized during the 2008 presidential primary. Its treasurer was Tanya Wiley, who is also a campaign consultant. Witherspoon was listed as custodian of books information in the committee’s statement of organization.

A consultant and publicist associated with the firm WCP Communications, Wiley played a prominent role in Parmon’s recent primary. Wiley publicized and handled media inquiries for a press conference in which Parmon launched her candidacy in tandem with an announcement by NC Rep. Larry Womble that he would not seek the Senate seat and would retire from public office. Witherspoon also announced his candidacy at the event, and Wiley produced press releases for both campaigns.

The Winston-Salem Black PAC drew sizeable contributions from prominent figures: $2,500 from then-gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue, $1,000 from Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines and $500 from Ernest H. Pitt, chairman and CEO of the Winston-Salem Chronicle.

The committee’s organizational report was filed two days after the primary, and listed $4,008 in cash on hand. The committee failed to file second-quarter or third-quarter plus reports, prompting an official notice of noncompliance to Wiley from Kim Westbrook Strach, deputy director for campaign reporting at the state Board of Elections, on Nov. 12, 2008.

Instead of catching up on its second-quarter and third-quarter plus reports the committee skipped to the 2008 year-end semi-annual report, which the board of elections received in February 2009. The report showed a balance of $164. Cash on hand at the end of the previous report should equal cash on hand at the beginning of the subsequent report. That $4,008 dwindled to $164 indicates that $3,844 remains missing or unaccounted. No mention of the discrepancy can be found in correspondence from the board of elections that is posted on the agency’s website. But Strach did attempt to get the committee to file the missing reports, first warning of termination of active status so the committee could not receive or make contributions, then imposing a $500 fine.

Witherspoon and Wiley could not be reached for comment for this story.

Five hundred dollars is the maximum fine for reports affecting non-statewide elections. It is unclear how the board of elections determined that that the committee’s efforts affected only local elections; a $2,500 contribution from Perdue raises questions about whether the committee promoted her candidacy for governor — a statewide office.

In addition to the almost $4,000 that disappeared, the committee raised and spent more than $9,000, mainly in October and November of 2008. A maximum contribution of $4,000 came from the NC Democratic Party. Parmon and Womble respectively contributed $2,900 and $1,355. Charles T. Hagan, the late father-inlaw of US Senate candidate Kay Hagan, gave $1,000. A total of $3,254 was paid out to Wiley or WCP Communications for various services, including an e-mail campaign and marketing. Witherspoon collected a “volunteer stipend” of $621.

Still unable to obtain the missing reports from Wiley, Strach warned in a July 2009 letter that state law provided that the state Board of Elections “shall request the Attorney General to institute a civil action to recover the amount of the assessment” if the fine wasn’t paid in 30 days.

Strach said in a voice-mail message that her staff is reviewing the committee’s reports and will report the results as they come in.

Charles Winfree, a Republican member of the state Board of Elections from Greensboro, acknowledged that staff lacks the ability to audit every report by every committee.

“When there are public questions about a committee, then that moves that committee up on the priority list,” he said.

Listing Witherspoon as the treasurer, the committee filed reports for the first and second quarters of 2010, which covered that year’s primary election. The committee reported zero receipts, zero expenditures and a zero balance. And yet a flier was handed out at polling places endorsing Parmon, Frye, Witherspoon and Bonham, and inscribed with the notation “Paid for by Winston- Salem Black Political Committee” — an entity that purportedly had no funds.