SHERIFF CANDIDATES TRADE SHOTS

No one can tell whose hands are dirty, but mud is flying in the race for
New Hanover County sheriff.

Democratic candidate Col. Sid Causey has been forced to fend off apparently
baseless allegations of corruption, while Republican Marc Benson reels from
the circulation of personnel records detailing his 1997 termination from
the department.

The allegations against Col. Causey, a 20-plus-year veteran of the
department, have been leveled via anonymously authored e-mails, a Web site
and mailings that claim he's corrupt.

And while Mr. Benson says he doesn't condone the anonymous material, he has
said publicly that he believes the unsubstantiated charges to be true.

Col. Causey insists the material, which is directed at his supporters, is
meant to harm him, and at the same time denies Mr. Benson's charges that he
had anything to do with the release of Mr. Benson's personnel documents.

Several weeks ago, Gary Shipman, New Hanover County Democratic Party
chairman, faxed a release to area media outfits calling for Mr. Benson to
"come clean" about the end of his career in the department he's vying to lead.

Mr. Benson and the New Hanover County Republican Party quickly fired back,
alleging Mr. Shipman and Col. Causey were trying to smear his reputation.

At the same time, the anonymously authored material against Col. Causey had
already made it to his supporters, detractors and the media.

Along with a claim that the DEA and the FBI are investigating Col. Causey's
involvement in a drug investigation between New Hanover County and Tampa,
Fla., an excerpt asks if local media are conspiring to protect the Democrat.

About the only nugget of confirmed truth - according to investigators with
Tampa police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration involved with the
case - is that Col. Causey and others from the local City County Vice and
Narcotics Unit went to Florida as part of a drug investigation.

In June 2000, Col. Causey, a captain at the time, went to Tampa on more
than one occasion to extradite two men who faced drug trafficking charges
in North Carolina. Through the investigation, Tampa police seized a
quantity of drugs, and the Tampa office of the DEA seized nearly $80,000 in
drug money.

The anonymously authored Web site, e-mail and letters claim that Col.
Causey attempted to spring one of the suspected traffickers from jail and
take the nearly $80,000 of drug money - a claim that lacks any verifiable
evidence.

"The money in question was seized in Tampa by the DEA and forfeited and
shared with the agencies involved. And it's well-documented," said Jon
Wilson, resident agent in charge of the Wilmington office of the DEA.

"I dispersed the checks," he said.

The agencies involved included Wilmington police, the New Hanover County
Sheriff's Department, Tampa police and the DEA.

Wayne Robinson, a Tampa police detective, said he assisted North Carolina
investigators on the case, and that while he thought what Col. Causey did
then was "kind of odd," it wasn't illegal.

Detective Robinson took issue with Col. Causey's unannounced arrival in
Tampa at one time during the investigation. But "no one had any reason to
believe he did anything wrong," he said.

Col. Causey said what Detective Robinson thought was odd was a ranking
officer working in the field.

"I'm not a pencil-pusher. I work in the field," Col. Causey said. "The sad
part about this is, it was a good case. Our main concern was cutting off
the flow of narcotics into New Hanover County and the Wilmington area."

Reluctant to discuss the e-mails and Web site, Col. Causey called the
material "slanderous, baseless lies sent out by people who are desperate to
gain control of the sheriff's department."

"I intend to pursue this after the election," he added.

While Mr. Benson contends he doesn't know who authored the material and
doesn't condone it being done on his behalf, he said he "absolutely"
believes it.

"I've gotten a copy of that e-mail. . We've got a serious problem with that
... if it is true, and we have found it to be true. I knew about that
stuff, but I thought it was a rumor," Mr. Benson said at a news conference
he held about two weeks ago.

"It reeks of impropriety and cover-up," he said.

Despite his familiarity with the case, Mr. Benson did not provide any
evidence supporting what he apparently believes.

"I'd love you to have more proof," Mr. Benson said. "The information I got
from several different sources say they were just shy of placing Causey
under arrest," he said, refusing to divulge those sources.

Detective Robinson said, "I don't have any reason to think Causey wasn't
acting in good faith."

Numerous attempts to contact the anonymous author of the material at the
e-mail address provided have been unsuccessful.

Walt DeVries, executive director of the Institute of Political Leadership
at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, said, "You can say
anything you want in a Web site."

Although he wasn't familiar with either the Web site or the e-mail - which
link Col. Causey to, among other things, Middle Eastern terrorists - it's
the first time Dr. DeVries said he has heard of the Internet being used
locally for negative campaigning.

"It's something new, and it may be effective," Dr. DeVries said. "But it's
like a cycle: After a while it starts to work against you. People get fed
up with it."

Fed up is apparently what Debbie Keck, the New Hanover County Republican
Party chairwoman, felt when Mr. Benson's personnel files were sent to the
media. Soon after, she called for Mr. Shipman to step down as chair of the
county's Democratic Party.

Around the same time that Mr. Shipman faxed his release to the media asking
Mr. Benson to "come clean," the same outfits received an anonymous package
containing a cover letter and personnel documents outlining Mr. Benson's
termination from the sheriff's department in 1997.

In September 1998, Mr. Benson filed a $3 million wrongful termination
lawsuit against former Sheriff Joe McQueen, who fired him. The lawsuit was
later settled, and settlement agreements allowed Mr. Benson to legally say
he resigned from the department.

Several weeks ago, Mr. Shipman said he heard Mr. Benson say on a local
radio program that he resigned. Mr. Shipman said he thought the statement
was false since the agreement allowing him to say he resigned was made with
the county and not the public.

Ms. Keck called for a state investigation into possible election law
violations by Mr. Shipman, his law firm, the New Hanover County Sheriff's
Department, the New Hanover County Democrat Party and the Causey campaign.

Sheriff Sonny Lanier said the files didn't come from his office, an
allegation publicly leveled by Democrat Nathan Johnson, a former sheriff's
department employee who crossed party lines to endorse Mr. Benson after
being soundly beaten in the Democratic primary for sheriff by Col. Causey.

The personnel files were out in the open after Mr. Benson filed his lawsuit
against Sheriff McQueen, Sheriff Lanier said.

"Anybody could've gotten them then," he said, a notion supported by the
State Bureau of Investigation, which concluded its investigation into the
matter Monday.

District Attorney John Carriker, a Democrat, reported the SBI's conclusions
in a news release. He said locked access to the files was not maintained
until about a year ago, and that from April 14, 2000, until Sept. 8, 2000,
the files were public record in the U.S. Court Clerk's Office. The
unauthorized copying of information in personnel files is a Class 3
misdemeanor subject to a fine of up to $500.

Citing similarities in the styles of writing in the cover letter
accompanying the files and Mr. Shipman's news release, Mr. Benson said he
believes Mr. Shipman sent the files to the media.

"I didn't leak his personnel documents," Mr. Shipman said.

Libertarian candidate Paul Johnson has stayed out of any mud slinging but
said he had seen the anonymous material directed at Col. Causey and called
for the author to come out.

"Whoever wrote it is a coward, and they should expose themselves or go
away," he said.