Earlier this month, the New Hanover County Democratic Party endorsed three of four Democrats running for the school board. The omission of Wendy Dale, the fourth Democratic candidate in the race, stems from concerns about how transparent she’d been about her past criminal and legal record.
Dale has four misdemeanor convictions, along with two bankruptcies, but initially disclosed only some of that history to party leadership, citing a civil consent order that prevents her from discussing details of high-level misdemeanor charges for stalking and communicating threats, both dating back to January 2013.
Dale has defended her decision, saying the party didn’t ask her about her full history until more recently. She said, aside from the serious misdemeanors, her other convictions didn’t concern her because they were from lower-level charges, noting they were also over a decade old. State records show convictions for a disorderly conduct incident dating back to 2012 and criminal contempt in 2014. Dale said she served 10 days in jail for the contempt charge and three days for the disorderly conduct.
The party clearly felt differently from Dale. But while Dale claims she was pressured to drop out of the race, New Hanover County Democratic Party Chair Jill Hopman said the party simply warned Dale that her record, and the failure to be up front about it, would make her and the party a target for Republican attacks. Dale said adamantly she would be staying in the race.
Dale offers context on her court history
According to Dale, a civil consent order has made it difficult to talk about the most serious misdemeanor charges, stalking and communicating threats.
“I cannot discuss the other party, which means I can’t provide context about how and why this happened. For clarification, the consent order is not part of the stalking case itself, but rather a separate matter, but it effectively prohibits me from discussing the stalking/communicating threats case in any significant way,” Dale wrote in an email to WHQR.
WHQR could not independently verify the existence of the consent order, although no one interviewed for this article expressed skepticism that it exists. Dale didn’t have a copy of the order, but did provide the civil case number. The court record for the case does indicate a dismissed defamation action, which could have led to a consent order. That type of court-approved agreement can limit what parties can say about each other, and violations can lead to being held in contempt of court.
Dale did say that the charges ”involved no actual violence, and it was never my intent to harm anyone.” She also noted that there was “never a trial on the merits of the case,” because her convictions stem from the court finding she had violated a deferral agreement (which allows defendants to avoid certain sentences if they agree to court-mandated conditions). The court record supports that, though it doesn’t list the specific conditions.
Dale said the violation “technicality that had nothing to do with the underlying charges.” She said she disagreed with the court and, in retrospect, should not have consented to the deferral agreement.
Dale also noted, as a digression, that the state’s stalking statute “was written to be intentionally broad,” arguing that “results in the poor and those without quality counsel being adversely impacted while the rich are more likely to put up a successful defense.” She cited a 2019 decision in which the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned a stalking conviction because it ran afoul of the First Amendment.
According to court records, in 2012, Dale was involved in a verbal altercation with officers at the Carrboro County jail outside of the magistrate’s courtroom. After her teenage child was arrested, Dale arrived at the facility and tried to take them home; when officers declined to release the child, because they had not posted bond, court records state Dale became irate, using profanity. One of the officers involved claimed that Dale had grabbed him, scratching his face and causing him to bleed. Dale was acquitted of assaulting an officer, but convicted on the disorderly conduct charge. Dale appealed, but in 2015, the Court of Appeals upheld her jury conviction.
A court later found she violated her parole by failing to “pay the monetary conditions of probation on the agreed upon schedule, and by refusing to reschedule and serve her required jail time.” Dale appealed the decision but again the Court of Appeals upheld it.
Asked about the disorderly conduct charge, Dale wrote that “I don’t have the file in front of me and it’s been so long I might have forgotten some of the details. My recollection is that I was arrested for arguing with a cop inside the jail lobby and dropping the f-bomb. There were no witnesses to this other than the charging officer and two other officers. The lobby was otherwise empty of people.”
A separate parole violation, tied to a different case, involved Dale’s refusal to take a drug test. Dale said she didn’t remember the details because it had been some time.
“I think I refused a drug test because I was emotionally sick from the condescending and humiliating treatment I received from some of the probation officers. I have never had a substance abuse issue nor did I ever fail a drug test. Additionally, I think it is ridiculous to require universal drug testing on probationers even when drugs are not a factor in their cases. It’s very Orwellian in my view. I think the violation was dismissed because the term of my probation had ended,” she wrote.
Dale also addressed her bankruptcy proceedings; she filed Chapter 13 in 2015 and Chapter 7 in 2018. Dale said she didn’t think they were a political liability and that she’d demonstrated her financial responsibility through her job.
“I’ve been open about the fact that I grew up relatively poor and was a never-married single mother. I worked my way up from being a welfare mom to graduating college and very gradually increasing my income level and quality of life for my family. You’d better believe there were financial issues. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the skills to manage money and budgets. As part of my job in the software industry, I manage high-dollar contracts all the time. Bankruptcy was not a personal failure, but rather a legally available survival tool made necessary by an economic system that assumes very little responsibility for women and children,” she wrote.
Initial disclosure
According to Dale, she spoke with Democrat Tim Merrick, a current school board member who is running against Republican County Commissioner Dane Scalise for a state House representative seat, prior to filing.
Merrick referred WHQR to NHCDP party chair Hopman, but said he thought it would be best for Dale, and the party, if she stepped down.
In mid-December, after filing, Dale and Hopman met. According to Dale, she disclosed the stalking and communicating threats case and the difficulty presented by the consent order. She acknowledged she did not bring up the other convictions or legal issues.
“I didn’t specifically discuss any of the other issues because I wasn’t asked to. To be clear, I was not asked about the stalking conviction either. I brought it up to Jill because I wanted to know the likelihood of it being an issue either internally with the party or otherwise. She said it was always a possibility that past matters could be brought up by the opposing party but that there was a good chance it would not come up in a local board of education election. She did not express any reservations about me running. She asked for no additional information about my past. She also stated at the end of our conversation that she wanted me to be one of the winners of the Democratic primary,” Dale wrote.
Hopman said Dale did inform the party “about one incident in limited terms,” but noted that she “never submitted our candidate questionnaire or agreed to a background check.”
Dale said she didn’t answer the background form, which she noted was labeled “voluntary,” due to the “lack of time during the primary.”
Dale would go on to take the second most votes in the March primary, winning one of four slots.
Southerland scandal, enhanced vetting
The day after the election, WHQR reported that the fourth-place winner, Rick Southerland, had failed to disclose to the party or the public that he was living with a registered sex offender who had served federal prison time. Shortly afterward, Southerland withdrew from the race (eventually replaced when the party appointed Margie Gewirtzman, who had taken fifth place).
Dale said the Southerland story didn’t change her mind about her own record’s impact on her or other Democratic candidates.
“I had already considered the impact of my record prior to the Rick Southerland scandal. The scandal certainly made it more likely that my background would be a topic of public discussion, but I had always known that to be a possibility. My gut feeling in the matter hasn’t changed. I’m capable of winning the election despite my record, and I actually believe that most people in the party still want me to win in November,” she said.
In the wake of revelations about Southerland, NHCDP vowed to implement more comprehensive vetting procedures – including on the candidates advancing from the primary to the general election. That led to questions about Dale’s other legal issues.
“That process surfaced a substantially more complete picture than what she had initially shared with us,” Hopman told WHQR. “In April, we met with Ms. Dale about concerns regarding her transparency.”
According to Hopman, Dale said she had no intent of withdrawing. Hopman said during a meeting with a publicist, herself, and Dale, they advised Dale that the campaign would be tough, but didn’t tell her to withdraw.
“Nobody told her to drop out. We warned her that Republicans would likely attack both her and the NHCDP over it,” Hopman said.
Hopman said Dale suggested the media, including WHQR, might be willing to provide a sympathetic ear. Hopman said they didn’t think that would cushion the impact of the story.
“Here is what we actually told her about disclosure: ‘I don't see an outcome here where we have the opportunity to message this in a way that's going to inoculate you or the party against that,’” Hopman said. “That's advice about electability. Not suppression or threats.”
Dale felt differently about the conversation, saying that although she felt Hopman was initially supportive of her going public, once she got on a call on April 27, “it was clear that they had decided to use the opportunity to convince me to withdraw, telling me in very unambiguous terms that any public mention of the stalking charge would be too damaging to the party.”
Dale said she argued that Republicans would make inflammatory attacks on Democratic candidates no matter what.
Dale added that, after the conversation, she remained concerned about violating the consent order, and felt like it was not “possible for me to speak publicly about it without potentially losing the support of the party and causing a media firestorm.”
In mid-May, while doing additional research on candidates on the November ballot, WHQR came across some of Dale’s criminal and legal issues. On the evening of May 15, WHQR reached out to Dale, but didn’t receive a response. After the NHCDP endorsements were released, WHQR reached out again; this time, Dale responded and agreed to answer questions at length.
Endorsements
On May 18, the NHCDP’s executive committee, which includes precinct chairs, vice chairs, NHCDP officers, elected officials, State Executive Committee members, and Affiliated Organization presidents, voted unanimously to endorse Brittnei LaRue, Jerry Jones, Jr., and Margie Gewirtzman for the school board.
NHCDP does not usually make endorsements either before or after a contested primary, Hopman said. While the announcement did not name Dale, her omission was a tacit acknowledgement of concerns about her candidacy.
“We took the additional step here because of transparency concerns. The public can forgive past mistakes if a candidate is honest about those mistakes before a primary and allows voters to make an informed decision. That unfortunately did not happen here. Although any registered Democrat can run for office, whether they agree to the NHCDP’s vetting process or not, we will alert the party and the public if a candidate declines to participate in the future,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Dale said she’d been contacted by party members, pressing her to discuss her issues publicly to avoid losing party support.
She felt it was a frustrating no-win scenario, having been told that going public would lead to attacks on her and the party, while staying silent would only deepen concerns about her transparency. Emails provided by Dale show that, in the weeks leading up to the endorsement, some candidates had expressed concern about the public’s reaction to a second Democratic candidate having “skeletons they kept in their closet.” Dale reiterated in response that she felt Hopman and the party had already shot down her offers to speak publicly.
Dale said she tried to reconcile the situation late last week, contacting Hopman on Friday, “to see if there were some way this could be worked out so that we could present it to the public as an internal misunderstanding. I told her that I had always been willing to publicly discuss this matter within my legal limitations, but I didn’t because she had told me on the call that doing so would create a media disaster and that my only option was to withdraw.”
Dale said Hopman again denied that she had told Dale that withdrawing was the only option, or that she couldn’t go public. Hopman told WHQR she had been clear, “we simply told her that there was no magic bullet messaging here.”
On that point, Dale and Hopman fundamentally disagree. Dale said she felt like the real issue was her criminal record – especially the stalking and communicating threats charges – as opposed to her transparency.
“The issue for [Hopman] is the fact that I have this record, which, in her view, will inevitably result in negative publicity. It is absolutely not about my willingness to discuss it publicly,” Dale told WHQR, adding that she was frustrated because the party had known about her most serious charge “since December.”
Hopman said, had Dale disclosed her past at any time, before or after the primary, NHCDP would have supported her and not proceeded with the endorsements.
“We only voted on these endorsements because, after a month of multiple conversations between her, the other candidates, her former campaign manager, and the party, it did not seem like she was willing to fully address the situation, one way or the other, as requested. That is all we wanted here: transparency. After our April 27th meeting, she said that she would speak to her attorney and get back to us. She never did. When I asked for a follow-up meeting in May, she canceled it. When I asked her to please reconsider, she did not respond,” Hopman said.
“But the public did not know, and this continued to linger and cause division. The other candidates were trying to plan events and felt uncomfortable running with her; the party was trying to finalize campaign materials and had to make a decision to protect our other candidates,” she said.
For her part, Dale alleged that NHCDP had “abdicated responsibility for supporting its own candidate, making such support contingent on my ability to win over the public, when normally it is the party that should be assisting me with winning over the public.”
Dale added, “This kind of undemocratic, party gatekeeping is not only antithetical to our progressive values, but it is self-sabotaging to our goals. It strikes me as very ironic that after all the fear-mongering about how the Republicans would weaponize my record against me, it is actually my own party that has used it against me.”
Dale said she would continue her campaign, with or without NHCDP support.