Ethics complaint says NC House Speaker Tim Moore profited from his political position

RALEIGH -- A government watchdog group is accusing one of North Carolina’s most powerful legislators of using his political position for financial benefit – by stopping state regulators from cracking down on pollution at a property he owned and was trying to sell.

Tim Moore, a Republican, is the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives and a lawyer from Cleveland County in Western North Carolina. He also co-owns a company called Southeast Land Holdings that in 2013 bought an abandoned chicken processing plant in Chatham County, according to an ethics complaint filed Monday morning.

That poultry plant is the focus of the ethics complaint filed by the Campaign for Accountability, a Washington-based group.

The group is asking North Carolina’s state ethics board to look into its accusations. The allegations focus on how state environmental inspectors treated the property in Siler City when it was co-owned by Moore, as well as Moore’s potential role in taxpayer-funded grants associated with the property.

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