On paper, she’s a lab employee and a campaign donor. The reality is far different.

This is the first of two articles about Mako Medical CEO and campaign donor Chad Price. The second article looks at the inflated qualifications he submitted to government agencies.

Chad Price says Mako Medical, the fast-growing lab testing company he co-founded in Raleigh, started with frustrations he faced getting his younger sister the medical tests she regularly needed.

His sister Jessica, 37, was born with a genetic condition that left her with the mental capacity of a young child. She lives with Price, who is her legal guardian, at his home in Apex.

But in campaign filings, Jessica emerges as an administrative employee for Mako and a political donor, contributing $17,500 to five state or federal candidates in four states, including North Carolina. For three of those candidates, Chad Price had made the maximum contributions in his own name.

Those contributions are among hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money flowing predominantly to Republican candidates from Chad Price and a small group of people and businesses connected to him over the past five years. During that time, Price developed deep connections with state elected and appointed officials, two of whom joined his businesses.

Price’s contributions and correspondence with government officials reveal his growing influence in state politics and show the challenges regulators face enforcing a level playing field in election campaigns.

In those five years of campaign giving, Mako grew from a small lab in North Raleigh to a 55,000-square-foot facility in Henderson that was purchased and renovated with help from $5.2 million in state and local incentives.

Price also won a seat on Wake Tech’s Board of Trustees and a state Division of Motor Vehicles contract to operate a license plate agency in Holly Springs. And a top state lawmaker ran legislation that would have helped Mako gain more customers by reducing the control insurance companies have in choosing who does the lab work.

Records obtained by The News & Observer show Price submitted qualifications for the Wake Tech position and the license plate agency that inflated his educational attainment. His resume for the Wake Tech job also shows a vice president position for Ford Motor Co. that he never held.

Federal law and laws in all of the states in which Price made contributions in his sister’s name — Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia — prohibit giving in the name of another. The penalty for violations of those laws typically range from a low-level felony to a misdemeanor.

Those state and federal laws provide transparency on campaign giving, and try to curb individuals and companies from having unfair influence over candidates who, if elected, could potentially reward contributors.

“When people evade those transparency rules by funneling money through another person, not only are they potentially violating contribution limits, they are making it harder for those violations to be detected and they are depriving the public of that information,” said Erin Chlopak, a director with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign watchdog organization. She was speaking only about the law, not the Mako-related contributions.

Other contributions in question

Mako is headquartered in North Raleigh, and has reported roughly 500 full and part-time employees working in nine states. Triangle Business Journal named it the region’s fastest-growing company three years in a row. In late 2017, the company reported paying more than $30 million in taxes and earning more than $100 million in sales in its first three years.

Chad Price has tight connections with Republican politics, even though state records show he hasn’t voted in an election since 2013. That year he lost a campaign in which he sought a seat on the Apex Town Council.

Campaign finance records show he began making contributions in early 2012. Since then, most of the money has gone to Republican candidates, though in recent years he stepped up his giving to Democrats.

Price founded Mako with Josh Arant, a former aide to Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. They have said in several published reports that they met at a Bible study held by longtime state Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby, a Republican, and both knew little about the health-care industry. Price had started several other businesses over the years, and was the vice president of Cary Reconstruction Company, a business that specialized in disaster cleanups before it was sold to a larger company.

The campaign contributions attributed to Price’s sister are not the only campaign records that raise questions. Jennie Price, a Black Mountain resident who appears unrelated to Chad Price, denied contributing $2,000 to a Kentucky candidate early last year. She also denied knowing a Jason Price who is listed in campaign reports at her address as her husband and a lab director for Mako. The reports show he also gave a $2,000 contribution on the same day. The ZIP code reported for those contributions is for Apex.

Other reports show Chad Price contributed to two South Carolina politicians in the name of a defunct business, while one of those candidates also received a contribution from a business Price doesn’t own. Three 2018 contributions made by associates of Price’s were returned in June by House Speaker Tim Moore’s campaign without an explanation why.

Bob Hall, the retired longtime executive director for Democracy NC, said election officials should scrutinize the contributions in Jessica Price’s name, the amount of campaign money connected to Chad Price and the inconsistencies in how the money has been reported.

“It definitely fits a pattern of someone who is pushing a large amount of money through multiple donors, whether they are being reimbursed, whether it’s his money or whether he’s convincing them to give their own money,” Hall said. “But it is a pattern that I have seen in cases that do involve corruption.”

He said investigators need to focus on the entirety of campaign giving across multiple state and federal elections instead of looking at each election on its own.

Donation disallowed

Chad Price confirmed in a phone interview with The News & Observer that he made the contributions on behalf of his sister, who he acknowledged has no income.

In addition to the five candidates listed as recipients in campaign reports, Price said he also made a $1,000 contribution in his sister’s name to another state candidate in West Virginia, but it was erroneously reported as from Mako employee Jay Price, who does not exist. Chad Price had also given $1,000 to that candidate, which was the maximum allowed under West Virginia law.

Former North Carolina state Rep. Nelson Dollar of Cary was among the five recipients. His reports showed he received $5,200 each from Jessica and Chad Price on the same day, Oct. 24, 2018. Dollar’s report shows Jessica Price as working in “medical administration” for Mako.

Chad Price said candidates’ campaigns advised him it was OK to give that way, but North Carolina officials told him roughly nine months ago they had disallowed the donation to Dollar.

“They weren’t 100% sure, but they said, you know, there’s a statute that says you can’t give on behalf of somebody else, so the campaign has to forfeit the money back to the state,” he said.

Price said he had not intended to mislead anyone.

“It’s not like I was trying to hide it,” Price said in a phone interview. “I thought it was perfectly fine. I’m her advocate in every other area of her life.”

He blamed the campaigns for putting incorrect information in their election reports such as his sister working for Mako and listing his home as the address for several others who gave.

“The campaigns are the ones that put the addresses in,” he said. “They do all the campaign finance reports and they put all the information in.”

In North Carolina, candidates’ campaign treasurers are responsible for accurate information about contributors such as names, home addresses and occupations. But the law prevents criminal prosecution or civil penalties if the treasurer made a “best effort” to get the information. That includes allowing treasurers to report “unable to obtain” an occupation if contributors didn’t provide it.

Four of the candidates who received the donations did not respond to phone calls from The News & Observer. They are Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former Georgia state Sen. Judson Hill, Kentucky secretary of state candidate Stephen Knipper and former West Virginia state Sen. Ryan Ferns. All are Republicans.

West Virginia state Sen. Stephen Baldwin, a Democrat, said in an email to The News & Observer that he had been contacted by a West Virginia investigator recently. He said he did not know Jessica Price, and didn’t want to comment further while the contribution was being looked into.

“It sounds like an investigation is ongoing about donation irregularities, and I’ve pledged to do anything I can to assist in that,” Baldwin said.

Dollar, who had served as a top budget writer in the NC House until he lost re-election in 2018, said he had not seen anything unusual in Jessica Price’s donation. Though he said he had limited knowledge of her disability, he thought the money came from her and that she was working for Mako.

“That’s my understanding is that she has some relationship with Mako Medical,” he said. “The details of that I don’t know.”

In a follow-up interview, Dollar said he had spoken with Price and corrected the campaign report to remove her occupation and employer. He said the contribution was made with a credit card via a web-based fundraising portal, which asks contributors to fill out the required information.

Chad Price had made his contribution to Dollar using the same card, Dollar said. He said he assumed Price made the contribution on his sister’s behalf because he is her guardian.

GOP connections, failed legislation

The contributions under Jessica Price’s name are among roughly $560,000 in campaign money connected to Chad Price that has gone to state and federal candidates or political committees in eight states since 2015, campaign finance records show. He has contributed $323,000 in his name, through his sister or through businesses that he owns. The rest came from family and business associates.

Most of the donations went to candidates in states where Mako does business — North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Price said Mako also does business in Florida, Indiana and New Mexico.

More than a dozen of those contributions made by family and business associates of Chad Price list his home address, campaign reports show.

Much of the $560,000 went to the campaigns of roughly 15 candidates, most of them Republicans. Senate leader Phil Berger received a $5,200 contribution from Price, while Moore received $26,000 from Price and his family and business associates.

Chad Price and another Mako executive, Daniel Watkins, each gave $5,000 to Roy Cooper, a Democrat, after election results showed him with what later turned out to be a slim but insurmountable lead in the 2016 governor’s race. Price gave $5,000 to Cooper’s opponent, Gov. McCrory of Charlotte, during that election.

Price has bragged of his role in helping Republicans get elected. In a 2013 email, he dropped the names of several Republicans to Tony Tata, who McCrory had just appointed transportation secretary. They included Newby, state Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest.

“I have met you several times on the campaign trail,” Price said. “I helped Mayor Weatherly campaign win his campaign, ran Justice Newby’s campaign, Skips (sic) Stam’s campaign, and worked with Hal on Dan Forest’s campaign. I even saw you with Ron M. when I was out driving my Ferrari in Cary,” Price wrote.

Two years later, Price sought help from Stam, who then was House speaker pro tem. WRAL reported that Stam unsuccessfully sought to add a provision to insurance legislation under consideration in a House judiciary committee meeting that would boost Mako’s reach in the lab testing market.

The provision would have given doctors more authority in choosing lab testing services, and loosened the control insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina have. The legislation didn’t make it out of the committee.

Stam left the legislature in 2016, and is an attorney in Apex. He said Price, who lives in his former district, sought the legislation, and Stam thought it was a good idea because it would help level the playing field for smaller companies.

Stam said Price didn’t manage any of his campaigns as Price had indicated in his email to Tata. Price did robocalls.

“He didn’t in any way, shape or form manage my campaign, but he was helpful,” Stam said.

Stam said seeking the legislation had nothing to do with Price’s campaign help. Price had also given Stam’s campaign $1,750 in contributions in 2012.

Mako grew despite the legislative setback. The company won approvals from insurers, including Blue Cross NC, which handles the State Health Plan, and recently boasted on a billboard along the Raleigh Beltline that more than 50,000 doctors had switched to using Mako.

Business contributions

Price’s business contributions went to two South Carolina Republican candidates who won election in 2018: Gov. Henry McMaster and state Attorney General Alan Wilson. Six businesses that Price owns or co-owns are reported as giving maximum contributions of $3,500 to McMaster in the 2018 election, while five are listed as giving to Wilson. Price had also given maximum contributions to those campaigns in his own name.

Credit card statements Price provided showed contributions for four of those businesses came from an account in his name. He did not dispute making the contributions out of that account, saying the candidates’ campaigns told him he could.

South Carolina law allows businesses to make campaign donations, even when their owners have given the maximum allowed, and even if the contributions are coming from multiple businesses with the same owner. But the law is murky as to whether the owner of multiple businesses can give from his own account in the names of those businesses, as opposed to the donations coming from the business accounts.

In early 2019, South Carolina’s State Ethics Commission won a nine-year-old case in which a businessman admitted he “unintentionally” made excessive campaign contributions through 14 shell companies he created. But the commission also noted a federal court decision from 2010 found unconstitutional the state’s definition of a “committee” that made contributions, throwing into question whether the commission could tackle such cases.

Tim Pearson, a spokesman for McMaster’s campaign, said the federal decision negated any issue with individuals giving in the names of their businesses. Mark Knoop, a spokesman for Wilson’s campaign, said it was reviewing the contributions and “we do everything to the letter of the law.”

John Crangle, the longtime former director for Common Cause in South Carolina, said the federal decision created a massive loophole for individuals to pour tens of thousands of dollars into South Carolina campaigns by creating shell companies. But he questioned whether it was legal for contributors to claim the money came from businesses they own when it came from their personal accounts.

“It’s a question that needs to be litigated,” Crangle said.

In one of those cases involving Price’s businesses, Mako Genomics, the business listed in the campaign accounts, had been dissolved eight months before McMaster’s and Wilson’s campaigns each received a $3,500 contribution in October 2018. Price confirmed he wasn’t the owner of another business, Response Team One, that also was listed as giving $3,500 to McMaster’s campaign in September 2017. He said those contributions should have been reported from Mako Logistics.

A family battle

The N&O in May became aware of Price’s campaign contributions through his parents, Larry and Susan Price of Clayton, who have filed election complaints in the states where their son contributed in his sister’s name, and to the Federal Election Commission for the contribution involving a congressional candidate in Georgia. Their complaint involving a state candidate was dismissed by Georgia officials. Other state and federal officials say they can’t comment on any complaints that are being investigated.

The couple is locked in a bitter battle with their son over the custody and care of their daughter Jessica. Chad Price won custody of her after alleging substandard care by her mother. At that time, Larry and Susan Price had separated.

His parents say they are incensed that their son used their daughter’s name to funnel more money to candidates. He says their complaints are an attempt to get back at him for winning custody of their daughter. Court records show Chad Price’s two other siblings supported his gaining custody. Larry Price didn’t oppose his son taking custody temporarily, the records show, but he then sought custody and was denied.

Chad Price has pointed to several mistakes in his parents’ election complaints, but he said he’s also since contacted candidates he contributed to so they can correct misinformation in their election reports.

Business associates

Chad Price and some of his business associates who have made frequent contributions to the same candidates say he did not persuade them to give. In some cases, they say they went to the same fundraising events or were contacted by the same fundraisers.

One of them is Jerry Bynum of Apex, who owns JLB Construction and Great White Medical Services, a company that specializes in renovating medical offices. JLB did construction work for Mako, and Price worked for other companies Bynum owned in the past. One of Bynum’s companies, Bynum Properties 3, owns the North Raleigh building on Garvey Drive that serves as Mako’s headquarters.

Price is also a partner in Bynum Properties 3, which lists Mako’s headquarters as its address.

Campaign finance records show Bynum, his family members and businesses that include Bynum Properties 3, gave nearly $140,000 to the same candidates to which Price has donated, all in the past two years. That includes a $25,000 contribution from Great White to the N.C. Republican Council of State Committee on Dec. 31, 2018. The committee is led by Lt. Gov. Forest, a candidate for governor.

Campaign records show Price giving another $25,000 contribution as “owner” of Great White. He said that is incorrect, and that he reported to the state elections board that Bynum made the contribution.

Great White’s $25,000 contribution was listed as a business contribution to the Republican Council of State Committee, which isn’t allowed under state law. Days later, the committee moved the money to its building fund, which can accept business donations.

Jerry Bynum and his brother Jim, who made a $1,000 contribution to a West Virginia candidate, are each listed as living at Chad Price’s home address.

Jerry Bynum said in telephone interviews that he is not influenced by Price, but Bynum noted that Price is “closely allied” with people Bynum supports.

“I’ve been blessed,” Bynum said, “and I’m trying to give back to people I believe in and causes that I believe in.”

Campaign finance reports filed after that interview show Speaker Moore’s campaign in June had returned three $5,200 contributions from Bynum, his wife Stephanie, and brother Jim from the 2018 election. Moore’s campaign treasurer, Amy B. Ellis, confirmed the contributions had been refunded, but declined to explain why.

Chad Price’s younger brother, Adam, showed The News & Observer a credit card report indicating that he and his wife, Amanda, gave $38,500 to the same group of candidates as Chad Price. Adam Price is Mako’s head of logistics. Six of those contributions list Chad Price’s home address.

“I’m a conservative, Christian, combat veteran with a disabled sister,” Adam Price said in an email message to The News & Observer. “I support people that have at least one out of 4 things in common, or if I have met an individual at an event and taking a liking to.”

Incentives for Henderson facility

Mako is supposed to add 153 jobs in Vance County and invest more than $15 million on the facility as part of the state incentives that were awarded in November 2017. State Commerce officials who administer the Job Development Investment Grant program called Mako’s request for incentives “Project Mikey.”

That’s a reference to Mako’s mascot. Mikey, an employee wearing a foam-rubber shark head with a wide toothy smile, who attends many charity fundraising and community events. The company also has a giant shark balloon that draws a rise from crowds lined up for the annual Raleigh Christmas parade.

Commerce records also show Project Mikey needed special approval from the Commerce Department’s Economic Investment Committee because the state’s $3.7 million cost exceeds a state cap based on 75% of state income taxes the new Mako jobs are expected to generate for the state as part of the expansion.

The total cost of the state and local incentives — $5.2 million — averages out to $33,753 per job, roughly two-thirds of the $51,987 average annual wage Mako has agreed to pay to the new hires.

Mako’s application for the incentives said North Carolina was facing incentives competition from Louisiana, Ohio and South Carolina, with Louisiana making an offer worth $6.5 million.

“The company has stated that an award at this level is critical to North Carolina’s consideration as the project location,” a Commerce report to the committee said.

Louisiana is far from Mako’s customer base, and the Commerce documents note the company would use the incentives to establish a new one. There were no specific proposals from South Carolina and Ohio.

Mako listed Gov. McMaster as the contact for South Carolina incentives. By then, Price and others connected to the company had given McMaster’s campaign $52,500, records show.

Former official helps

Mako paid John Skvarla to help represent Mako’s application for the North Carolina incentives. Skvarla served as McCrory’s commerce secretary in his final two years of office, which ended in January 2017. Skvarla is also a partner in the Bynum Properties business with Bynum and Price, which purchased the Henderson building. Commerce records show Vance County and Henderson contributed $450,000 to the $750,000 purchase price.

Skvarla said in an interview that he became an investor in Mako shortly after leaving the Commerce Department and he sits on the company’s board of advisors. He said the company officials’ political contributions “didn’t get them a damn thing.” Nor did Skvarla’s role as a representative to his former agency carry additional weight, he said, because he was dealing with a Democratic administration.

“This had nothing to do with me,” Skvarla said. “This had to do with the fact that Vance County and others wanted this company desperately, because there were other offers from other counties.”

“This is a good company with good people, doing good things, building good jobs and creating real value,” Skvarla said.

State Budget Director Charlie Perusse is one of the five members of the committee that decides who wins the incentive grants. He works for Cooper, and said the governor didn’t weigh in on Mako’s application, nor did political contributions enter into the decision making.

“Until you mentioned that (Price) had contributed to the governor’s campaign I didn’t even know about it,” Perusse said.

In numerous interviews over the past two years, Price has cited a “God and Google” strategy to founding and growing Mako, which started out providing lab testing but has since expanded into courier services and warehousing of medical records. The strategy is designed to highlight his Christian faith and his internet research into businesses to come up with innovations.

Mako touts its community service and hiring from the military. One trade news publication reported the company had donated $26 million to charity; Price clarified to the N&O that figure includes free services as well as money.

Weak enforcement

Officials with the election boards in South Carolina, West Virginia and North Carolina said they can’t comment as they investigate complaints. The board in Kentucky didn’t return messages from The News & Observer. Robert Lane, a spokesman for Georgia’s election board, said the Prices’ complaint against their son was unfounded. He said the money “almost absolutely” came from a financial account in Jessica Price’s name.

That may raise concerns that Chad Price was improperly spending his sister’s money in acting as her guardian, Lane said, but that’s not a matter for the election board.

Myles Martin, a Federal Election Commission spokesman, acknowledged receipt of the complaint against Chad Price, but said the commission can’t discuss pending complaints. He also said the FEC’s board lacks a quorum, which means it can’t resolve enforcement matters.

How much Price’s campaign activity gets scrutinized may depend on how much the authorities in the states and at the FEC pay attention to what happened elsewhere. Taken state by state, the contributions could draw little more than a misdemeanor, civil fines, or a warning if proven to be in violation.

Denise Roth Barber, managing director of the National Institute on Money in Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks campaign spending at the state and federal level, said most states have weak campaign enforcement and don’t investigate possible violations of another state’s laws.

“The key here is just to keep in mind that these agencies are, by and large, underfunded and understaffed,” she said.

And in at least one of those states — South Carolina — the law prevents those who file complaints from talking about them while they are being investigated.

Shortly after The N&O began asking election officials and McMaster’s and Wilson’s campaigns about Price’s contributions in South Carolina, Larry Price said he received a phone call. It was from a South Carolina investigator, who asked whether he had shared his complaint with a reporter and informed him it could be a criminal offense.

This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 1:53 PM with the headline "On paper, she’s a lab employee and a campaign donor. The reality is far different.."

Dan Kane

The News & Observer

919-829-4861

Dan Kane began working for The News & Observer in 1997. He covered local government, higher education and the state legislature before joining the investigative team in 2009.

David Raynor

The News & Observer

919-829-4798

David Raynor is database editor at The News & Observer where he acquires, maintains and analyzes data for the newsroom. He has worked on many stories and projects covering topics such as health care, campaign finance, census, crime, construction industry, elections, sports, education and environment. He joined the News & Observer in 1992.