A Triangle CEO won’t face charge after suspicious Kentucky political donation. Here’s why
A Raleigh CEO likely violated Kentucky’s election finance law, a prosecutor there concluded earlier this year. But he said a criminal case is not viable.
“This is a situation where antiquated election finance law lags modern technology when it comes to on-line campaign donations, and the result is an inability to track the true source of the donations,” Rob Sanders, the commonwealth attorney in Kenton County wrote state investigators.
The News & Observer obtained the letter as part of a public records request tracking an unusual case where a father has accused his successful business owner son of repeated misconduct with political donations.
In 2019, Larry Price of Clayton accused Mako Medical CEO Chad Price of making donations in the name of his disabled sister. Larry Price also raised questions about donations from people identified as other Price family members and Mako Medical business associates.
They are among roughly $560,000 in political donations the N&O identified while Chad Price was expanding his medical testing company’s business nationally. Mako Medical has grown further since then, largely due to its COVID-19 testing business during the pandemic. The company says it has conducted more than 9 million COVID-19 tests in more than 40 states, including Kentucky.
Whose money?
In campaign fundraising reports, Jessica Price was listed as giving maximum donations to five candidates in four states, with amounts totaling $17,500, the N&O confirmed. In some cases, she was listed as a Mako employee.
The Kentucky investigation involved a $2,000 contribution in her name to Stephen Knipper, a Republican candidate for Kentucky secretary of state in 2019.
But Jessica Price, 39, was born with a severe mental disability and functions at the level of a young child, Chad Price said.
The Kentucky investigation showed Chad Price entered donations of $2,000 each through the Knipper campaign’s website for his sister, himself and a brother, Adam Price. The brother, a Mako employee, told investigators that he paid for his donation. But detectives couldn’t confirm whose money paid for the October 2018 donations, Sanders said.
Sanders said Kentucky’s campaign finance laws were written before the advent of the Internet, and haven’t been updated to keep up with its impact on commerce. As a result, investigators have a hard time tracking how money moves from donors to candidates via campaign websites.
Price, who became Jessica’s guardian eight years ago, has said his father’s campaign finance complaints stem from his parents’ anger that he persuaded Will Crocker, then the Johnston County clerk of courts, to put Jessica in his, not their, care.
John Skvarla, an attorney for Mako Medical, did not respond to a reporter’s detailed questions last week about the Kentucky investigation. He dismissed the Kentucky prosecutor’s written suspicion that Chad Price had violated his state’s political election finance laws.
“The administrative documentation error was addressed years ago,” Skvarla, who is a partner with Chad Price in a real estate business, said in a written statement. “Regrettably, Chad and his father have been estranged following a custody battle for Chad’s disabled sister.”
Larger issues?
Bob Hall, the retired executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog, said he views Sanders’ letter and the rest of the investigative file the N&O obtained from Kentucky differently.
His chief concern is that no jurisdiction has taken a broad look at all of Chad Price’s political donations in multiple state elections and a Congressional race. Hall said state and federal investigators in North Carolina, where all the donations came from, should conduct one.
“What Chad Price was doing looks fairly small in Kentucky, but it’s national in scope and deserves a thorough probe by the FBI, SBI, (and) others,” Hall said in an email.
In at least two cases, the News & Observer found officials in Georgia and South Carolina who had received donations from Chad Price and others connected to him took actions to try to help the company gain more business.
South Carolina’s attorney general issued a glowing letter endorsing Mako after receiving $94,500 in donations from Price and people identified as his business associates. Emails and campaign reports show a Georgia congressional candidate began receiving $8,100 in donations from Price, his sister and another top Mako official shortly before and during the candidate’s efforts to help Mako join the network for an Ohio medical insurance program in late 2016 and 2017.
The Kentucky file showed no evidence that investigators looked into two donations listed under the name of one person who said she didn’t make them, and another who may not exist. Hall found that troubling.
Those also were donations to Knipper, who lost in the primary, and were listed on his campaign reports as coming from Jennie and Jason Price, a couple from Black Mountain, N.C. Jason was identified as a Mako employee.
Jennie Price, who is not related to Chad or Larry Price, told the N&O last year she never gave money to Knipper’s campaign. She also said didn’t know anyone named Jason Price. The N&O has not found him.
Larry Price provided an email to the N&O this month showing he had informed an investigator with the Kentucky Attorney General’s office of his questions about the Jason and Jennie Price donations.
Sanders, the Kentucky prosecutor, said if the attorney general’s investigators have not looked into those donations, they should. But he doubted they would, he said during a phone interview last week.
“I don’t know if that will be very high on their priority list,” he said, “given that this is a two-year-old campaign donation to a third-place finisher in a primary election.”
Sanders said another factor relevant to his decision not to pursue a case against Chad Price is that he did not see a motive for trying to illegally influence the election of a state secretary of state. That’s a position that largely serves as the state’s official record keeper and has little to do with health care or contract management.
Still under review
In his April letter to the state Attorney General’s office, Sanders said Jessica Price’s donation to a Kentucky candidate should be looked at by North Carolina officials as a case of possible misuse of funds by a guardian.
“We simply have no jurisdiction to pursue any charges related to inappropriate expenditure of Jessica Price’s money,” Sanders said.
Larry Price forwarded to the N&O an email this week from a North Carolina elections board attorney saying its investigation hasn’t been completed. Patrick Gannon, a North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesman, said he couldn’t comment on the case.
A change in election law nearly three years ago prohibits the board from publicly discussing campaign finance investigations.
Shannon Blevins, the detective in Kentucky who investigated the case, did not respond to emails from The N&O inquiring about donations not addressed in the file. Elizabeth Kuhn, a spokeswoman for Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the office would not comment beyond the release of the file.
Sanders is the prosecutor for Kenton County, which is where Knipper, who could not be reached for comment, resides. Sanders said he handled the case for the attorney general’s office because Chad Price made campaign contributions of $2,000 to Cameron, a Republican, when he was a candidate for the office, and $4,000 to Andy Beshear, a Democrat, who was the attorney general at the time Larry Price filed his complaint and later won the race for governor.
Those donations, and $10,000 Chad Price gave to the Kentucky State Democratic Central Executive Committee, all came after Price was notified of his father’s complaint.
The other states Larry Price filed complaints in are Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia. He also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
He said the Kentucky prosecutor’s letter showed he had reason to draw attention to his son’s campaign giving, but the lack of prosecution was discouraging.
“He never even got a slap on his hand,” Price said of his son.
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 1:04 PM with the headline "A Triangle CEO won’t face charge after suspicious Kentucky political donation. Here’s why."