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Updated: Sep. 8, 2022 at 11:26 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
An analysis by the N.C. Watchdog Reporting Network of hundreds of fuel sample records from school buses with MaxxForce engines across the state shows that oil sample tests found elevated levels of fuel in the oil more than one third of the time.
Updated: Sep. 7, 2022 at 11:47 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and Lucille Sherman
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman’s office has yet to pursue criminal charges in several complaints that elections investigators deemed worthy of criminal prosecution, including cases of voter fraud and campaign finance violations by an influential Raleigh CEO, newly obtained records show.
Updated: Aug. 23, 2022 at 5:47 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stopped a state criminal investigation into North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein on Tuesday. The ruling comes one day after a Wake County grand jury signed off on the first of a two-part process to seek charges against Stein.
Updated: Aug. 22, 2022 at 5:40 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is facing a possible indictment after a grand jury approved prosecutors moving forward with a criminal investigation.
Updated: Aug. 12, 2022 at 3:01 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and WBTV Web Staff
WBTV has been investigating excessive force allegations related to the arrest.
Updated: Aug. 11, 2022 at 7:49 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The Wake County District Attorney’s office pursued a criminal investigation into North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein despite a recommendation that the case be closed, according to a memo obtained by WBTV.
Updated: Aug. 11, 2022 at 4:33 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is investigating an arrest in which a sergeant with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reportedly choked a man whose hands were cuffed behind his back. An SBI spokeswoman confirmed the investigation to WBTV on Thursday, days after our investigation first exposed the incident and its fallout.
Updated: Aug. 9, 2022 at 2:19 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Judge Kimberly Best got into a heated argument with a delivery driver in the parking garage at the Mecklenburg County courthouse last month, according to multiple law enforcement narratives of the incident completed by courthouse security guards and deputies with the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
Updated: Aug. 8, 2022 at 4:05 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A Lincoln County sheriff's deputy was fired after he reported a supervisor choking a suspect whose hands were cuffed behind his back. Agents with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation have been unable to investigate the whistleblower's report because the local district attorney will not authorize them to do so.
Updated: Jul. 27, 2022 at 6:38 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and Lucille Sherman
The law at the center of a bizarre legal battle between Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman’s office and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was deemed virtually unenforceable several years ago by the state board of elections. Despite that, Freeman's office was minutes away from taking the case to a grand jury.
Updated: Jul. 11, 2022 at 5:13 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The City of Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have each faced sanctions in federal court in recent months over their failure to produce documents and other evidence in ongoing civil lawsuits. In one instance, a judge ruled that the city destroyed evidence.
Updated: Jun. 20, 2022 at 5:45 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A Charlotte-area man called WBTV for help after his license was suspended by the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles in a case of mistaken identity.
Updated: Jun. 8, 2022 at 4:48 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A former Myers Park High School student has filed a lawsuit against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools claiming the district allowed a culture of sexual harassment and failed to properly respond to her report of being raped by a fellow student on campus in 2016.
Updated: May. 16, 2022 at 2:33 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A WBTV investigation has uncovered illegal forms being used in Cabarrus County to remove children from their parents' custody and place them in the homes of other adults. A retired judge-turned-state lawmaker calls the forms astonishing. In the span of one interview, the director of Cabarrus County's department of human services confirmed the forms were used before denying they were ever used.
Updated: May. 9, 2022 at 9:39 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Charlotte’s two largest hospitals say they are seeing a spike in the number of assaults reported on staff.
Updated: May. 9, 2022 at 4:49 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and WBTV Web Staff
The letter written by Winston’s attorney Glenn Brock, provided new details of the back-and-forth between the school board regarding former superintendent Earnest Winston prior to his termination last month.
Updated: May. 5, 2022 at 2:53 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Two families called WBTV to talk about their experiences with DSS after having children taken from their home without a court order. It's a practice the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has said is limited. But stories and records from these two families suggest otherwise.
Sources: Top CMS staffer interfered in investigation into Hawthorne Academy HS sexual assault claims
Updated: Apr. 29, 2022 at 11:50 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
LaTarzja Henry, a top staffer at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, interfered in the investigation into the handling of reported sexual assaults at Hawthorne Academy High School, sources familiar with the matter tell WBTV.
Updated: Apr. 25, 2022 at 1:21 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The family of McCrae Dowless released a new statement Monday promising that more information will come out about allegations related to election fraud that has swirled for years, stemming from the 2018 election for the 9th Congressional District. Dowless died of cancer on Sunday.
Updated: Apr. 24, 2022 at 5:27 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and WBTV Web Staff
The political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, McCrae Dowless, has died after a battle with cancer, sources told WBTV.
Updated: Apr. 19, 2022 at 6:52 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education voted Tuesday to release internal personnel documents of Earnest Winston that the board said prompted its decision to fire him.
Updated: Apr. 19, 2022 at 12:36 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Board members voted publicly 7-2 to terminate Winston’s contract.
Updated: Apr. 18, 2022 at 11:18 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education will hold a special meeting on Tuesday where it is expected to vote to fire Superintendent Earnest Winston. That vote comes after months of back-and-forth regarding Winston's future at the district, including an offer by board members to pay Winston to leave.
Updated: Apr. 15, 2022 at 2:24 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: School district won’t comment on whether CMS staff face discipline.
Updated: Apr. 13, 2022 at 11:46 AM EDT
|By Brad Dickerson, Nick Ochsner and Courtney Cole
Authorities said the man’s roommate came forward with the information.
Updated: Apr. 1, 2022 at 7:25 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The American Legion is warning veterans about a North Carolina-based company it says preys on service members. Veterans Guardian charges veterans for help submitting benefit claims to the VA, which other organizations will do for free.
Updated: Mar. 31, 2022 at 9:57 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A new report from the watchdog for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of Inspector General, details problems with top regional VA leadership that it says led to decreased care for veterans.
Updated: Mar. 31, 2022 at 8:05 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has missed multiple deadlines to submit data to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The data is required to be submitted each year and includes statistics on student population, discipline and reports of incidents on school campuses, including reported rapes and sexual assaults. A district spokeswoman has not provided an explanation for why the deadline was missed.
Updated: Mar. 15, 2022 at 6:41 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
FBI connects man to missing women from Charlotte, N.C. and Greenville, S.C.
Updated: Mar. 15, 2022 at 10:10 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
What are state leaders doing each day? By law, the public has a right to know. But we found some state agencies taking much longer to producer their leader's calendar than others.
Updated: Mar. 8, 2022 at 11:26 AM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
In North Carolina, a social worker has to go to court and get a judge’s order to remove a child from their parents’ home. But a WBTV investigation has found social workers taking children from their parents' homes without a court order in Cleveland and Gaston Counties. No official in Cleveland County, Gaston County or at N.C. DHHS will answer our questions.
Updated: Mar. 1, 2022 at 7:48 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Diann Weston was reassigned from her job as Hawthorne Academy HS's principal to a job that pays substantially less after a WBTV investigation found Weston suspended a student who reported a sexual assault. Despite that, school records show she's still making more than $130,000 a year. Weston's former assistant principal, who was also reassigned, is making roughly $10,000 more than the pay scale for her new job.
Updated: Feb. 21, 2022 at 6:56 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
A WBTV investigation has uncovered a group of people living in eastern North Carolina who obtained nearly $250,000 in state and federal aid money by submitting fraudulent applications for assistance. The head of the state office that approved the fraudulent grants dismissed the findings as insignificant compared to the amount of money the program has awarded.
Updated: Feb. 15, 2022 at 7:17 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
A top state senator is asking questions of N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Cody Kinsley after a WBTV investigation found an eight-year-old boy reported being sexually abused in a group foster home. DHHS officials continue their refusal to answer questions.
Updated: Feb. 10, 2022 at 11:57 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has taken no concrete action in response to a report with dozens of recommendations from a task force formed to study how the district can better handle reported sexual violence.
Updated: Feb. 8, 2022 at 8:51 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Attorney General Josh Stein defended a science that has sent at least four innocent men to prison in North Carolina. Stein refused to answer WBTV's questions on camera for nearly a year. But that changed in early February.
Updated: Feb. 1, 2022 at 5:23 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: Records show UNC didn’t get permission until after deal was signed
Updated: Jan. 31, 2022 at 6:31 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
An eight year old boy reported being sexually assaulted by another child in a group foster home. A worried mother's quest to get answers has revealed a state licensing system that's hardly transparent.
Updated: Jan. 13, 2022 at 7:37 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
A man was assaulted and arrested while taking video of an incident involving Lincoln County sheriff’s deputies and other first responders inside a brewery. When he got his phone back, the video he'd taken was gone.
Updated: Jan. 11, 2022 at 6:31 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
A Mecklenburg County judge was accused, in a court filing, of domestic violence. Weeks later, the judge asked for the filed to be sealed. That request was denied but the court file was still kept from the public.
Updated: Dec. 14, 2021 at 3:53 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will release the report and recommendations of the Title IX Task Force on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for Superintendent Earnest Winston. The report is being released the same day that two top NC Senators sent a new letter to Winston demanding he provide answers and documents surrounding the district's handling of reported sexual violence.
Updated: Nov. 29, 2021 at 6:17 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board will meet in closed session on Tuesday to discuss the performance of Superintendent Earnest Winston. Tuesday's special meeting comes as Winston is under fire from board leadership and lawmakers in Raleigh over his handling of reported sexual violence at CMS schools.
Updated: Nov. 23, 2021 at 6:31 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: Those accused of a crime have had to wait a long time for a court date, some have even had to wait for years
Updated: Nov. 23, 2021 at 5:44 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
CMS Superintendent Earnest Winston is under fire and facing new questions from state lawmakers as well as the chairwoman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, according to new documents obtained by WBTV. The questions related to Winston's claims and recently-announced policy changes regarding how the district handles reported rapes and sexual assaults.
Updated: Nov. 22, 2021 at 5:04 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates first told you this spring about the science called “Microscopic Hair Comparison” which has been discredited with then-FBI Director Jim Comey
Updated: Nov. 19, 2021 at 10:13 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
He will be discussing Title IX after the task force completed its work in evaluating how the district handles reported sexual violence on campus
Updated: Nov. 18, 2021 at 4:29 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: There has been a rash of staff assaults at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center resulting in corrections officers being attacked and hospitalized
Updated: Nov. 16, 2021 at 11:06 AM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Dowless, the political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, is currently supposed to report to federal prison on December 1.
Updated: Nov. 15, 2021 at 6:57 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
An attorney for current and former students at Hawthorne Academy and Myers Park high schools has asked the U.S. Department of Education to open a new investigation into Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools over the district's handling of reported sexual violence. The call for a new investigation comes amidst an ongoing WBTV investigation into the school district.
Updated: Nov. 15, 2021 at 11:41 AM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
McCrae Dowless, the political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, pleaded not guilty to charges related to election fraud in Wake County court on Monday. His trial set set for late August.
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