How House Speaker Tim Moore’s former employee benefited from last year’s NC budget

Last year, House Speaker Tim Moore and Rep. Jason Saine budgeted a new position for the courthouses in their home counties that the Administrative Office of the Courts did not ask for in budget requests.

The result was a new job and a $13,000 raise for one of Moore’s former law firm employees.

Kinsley Mashburn Craig, 33, went from making $68,641 as a court manager to $82,000 as a trial court administrator in January, according to public records from AOC. Those records also indicate that Craig’s position had been created by legislators without a request from the court system, at least as part of its formal budget proposal.

Craig worked as a legal assistant and office manager at Moore’s law firm in Kings Mountain for two years beginning in 2010, according to her Linkedin profile. Craig deleted one of her Linkedin pages after learning that The N&O was writing this story. She also made her Facebook page private, which included photos of her with Moore.

Moore did not respond to requests for comment about how the position was created or his connection to Craig. His office did not make anyone available to speak on the record.

Saine, however, said that the position was created to benefit Lincoln and Cleveland counties, where he and Moore live, respectively, and not Craig.

Saine serves as Republicans’ lead budget writer in the House. He said he has known Craig for a decade, has her cellphone number and occasionally speaks to her about the needs of AOC or whether employees will get raises in the upcoming budgets.

He knew she had worked for Moore, a Republican and lawyer from Cleveland County, but said their connection didn’t have anything to do with her hiring.

“The local judges and court people were asking for it, and I realize AOC might not have requested it, but (the judges) are close to me and the speaker,” Saine said. “I don’t think it’s a big story; it’s just, yeah, turns out that’s how politics works: the proximity to talk to people who are in politics, and our districts do OK.”

Saine couldn’t tell The N&O why his county needed a trial court administrator more than others did.

“Tim interacts with the courthouse much more than I do,” Saine said, while struggling to explain who specifically requested the position. “It was one of those things that I was like OK, fine. That’s good with me. Whatever. They had a reason to justify it, and that was what it was.”

Trial court administrators

Trial court administrators, under state law, are positions created to manage civil dockets, improve jury use and help with any other needs assigned by a senior resident Superior Court judge. An AOC official said the job’s title was recently changed to “court administrator.”

Only eight of North Carolina’s judicial districts have trial court administrators and they tend to have a high volume of cases. The others are Wake, Durham, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth and Cumberland counties and the district that encompasses Granville, Franklin, Person, Warren and Vance counties.

Cleveland and Lincoln counties’ combined population of 193,765 is smaller than that of the other seven districts that have the position, whose populations range from 236,679 to 1.18 million.

What’s more, in 2022, Cleveland and Lincoln counties staged the smallest number of civil case trials of the eight districts at 2,677. The largest was Mecklenburg with 19,968.

In fact, 13 of North Carolina’s 49 judicial districts brought more civil cases to trial in 2022 than Cleveland and Lincoln counties. And another five districts held just 250 fewer trials than Cleveland and Lincoln counties. Eleven of those 18 counties do not have trial court administrators.

Asked why Cleveland or Lincoln received the positions while other counties were left without them, Saine responded: “Because I’m the budget writer and he’s the speaker. It goes into the budget for our areas and we’re able to see it through. It’s politics. I think readers would be shocked otherwise.

“Of course everyone’s important. I’m not saying they’re not,” he added, referring to the other 98 counties in North Carolina.

Moore and the court system

A recent, dramatic lawsuit also involved Moore’s alleged political influence on employment in the court system.

The lawsuit for “alienation of affection” came from Scott Lassiter, who accused Moore of sleeping with his wife, Jamie Liles Lassiter, in exchange for political favors.

Liles Lassiter worked as executive director of the North Carolina Conference of Clerks, in a position funded by the legislature. In the lawsuit, Lassiter said his wife was enticed into the relationship with Moore in order to get favorable action for the conference. He said she worried about ending the affair due to repercussions it would have on her job.

Moore denied those claims, and Moore and Lassiter announced they “resolved” the lawsuit two weeks after it was filed. Neither will comment on the nature of the resolution.

The N&O requested an interview with AOC Director Ryan Boyce, who declined.

Craig replied to an email from The N&O by saying that her boss, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge William “Todd” Pomeroy, would comment on her behalf.

Pomeroy told The N&O his predecessor requested the position but he was unaware that request did not go through AOC.

“I have a very quality staff here,” Pomeroy told The N&O. “I have very good people who stay very busy.”

Pomeroy said that his predecessor was about to retire when he learned that the position had been green-lit by the legislators, so he let Pomeroy do the hiring. Pomeroy said he posted the job to the AOC website and had at least 15 applicants. He said lawmakers did not offer any input into who he should hire.

“Like anything else, you look for the best people who you think can fulfill the job based on their merit,” Pomeroy said. “And I’m very pleased with the staff that I have, I’ve got great people.”

Looking after his own

Moore has used his power to help with the employment of state employees before — including a judicial employee’s move into a new sector.

In 2018, Moore’s then-fiancée, Jennifer Gray, switched careers from working in the Wake County District Attorney’s office to working in the state’s Department of Insurance. She ended up in a second position at the insurance department — where she helped move fraud cases through the court system — that had been created a year earlier in the 2017 budget, WRAL reported.

WRAL reported that she was the only candidate considered for two state positions, and that Moore’s office sent her resumé for consideration. She was first hired as an attorney at DOI making $82,000, but went on to make $88,893 in the created position, the television station reported.

She died in May 2022 at 42.

Others in Moore’s sphere have caused him to face scrutiny due to their employment and pay.

Take Mitch Gillespie.

In 2018, the legislative employee on Moore’s staff stopped working but was able to collect $81,700 in paychecks in the eight months that followed, before he officially retired — and reported that he was then owed more than $12,000 in accrued leave.

Moore and human resources employees failed to offer an explanation to how that would be possible.

Moore doesn’t shy away from letting his district know how much it benefits from his work as House speaker.

In 2021, he sent out a detailed news release about the 30 ways Cleveland County benefited in the budget, from a $59 million earmark for a new courthouse to $585,000 for a prison education center.

“The budget process and negotiations took months to get to a final product – a budget that is great for ALL of North Carolina, and particularly for Cleveland County,” Moore said in a news release. “It has been my honor to represent Cleveland County these ten years and I believe this budget serves my constituents well.”

Dan Kane and David Raynor contributed to this article.