By Gordon Anderson | gordon@rantnc.com

Republican Charles Taylor has filed a lawsuit accusing a political action committee opposing his election to the North Carolina House of Representatives of libel.

The lawsuit against the Sandhills Citizens Alliance, filed Tuesday in Lee County Superior Court, seeks compensatory damages exceeding $25,000, plus punitive damages, interest and court costs.

Taylor accuses the SCA of publishing statements it knew to be false in a mailer sent to voters in House District 51, which covers all of Lee County and part of Moore. Taylor, a member of the Sanford City Council, is running for the seat against unaffiliated candidate April Montgomery.

Among the statements in the SCA’s mailer that Taylor challenges are claims that he is “running a casino,” “owns an illegal gambling operation,” and is “breaking the law himself” by doing so. Additionally, the mailer claims Taylor is “under a state ethics investigation.”

According to the complaint, Taylor is the owner of a commercial property at 2101 Tramway Road in Sanford. Raleigh news outlet The Assembly reported in mid October that the property was home to what appeared to be an illegal gambling operation, and that Taylor had left that property and others off his statement of economic interest, a disclosure form many candidates and office holders in North Carolina are required to complete when seeking office. The next day, The Rant reported that a Lee County resident filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission over the omissions.

The SCA mailer cited both The Assembly and The Rant, but Taylor’s complaint says the mailer’s claims were contradicted by the reporting it cited. It goes on to say that Taylor is the landlord of the property, not the owner of the business, that Ethics Commission officials told his attorney no investigation had been initiated against him, and that the commission lacked jurisdiction to investigate him because he is not a legislator “or other covered person.” Taylor filed an amended SEI on October 15 disclosing the previously omitted properties and two limited liability companies.

Further, the lawsuit says the mailer is also at odds with SCA’s website, which describes Taylor as the property’s landlord and characterizes the ethics matter as a complaint and not an investigation.

Taylor previously demanded that The Assembly retract its reporting about his property disclosures. His lawsuit now cites the same reporting to support his claims against SCA.

Taylor sent the SCA a cease-and-desist letter on October 21, asking the PAC to stop publication of the mailer and retract the claims. The letter requested a response by 5 p.m. on October 23. The lawsuit claims the SCA subsequently failed to issue a retraction by that deadline. In an October 24 story about Taylor’s cease-and-desist letter, The Sanford Herald reported that SCA issued a statement saying “Mr. Taylor wants to make this about paperwork and mailers. It is about a city council member who is a landlord to a likely gambling operation, has not said who runs it, and who doesn’t have ‘any current intention’ of removing it.”

“I’m running because I care about the future of Lee and Moore counties and want to make a difference for the families who call this area home,” Taylor said in a press release on Tuesday. “The people of this district deserve a campaign focused on the issues that affect their lives, not false accusations and manufactured controversy.”

The SCA is an independent expenditure PAC that isn’t affiliated with Montgomery’s or any other campaign. According to Taylor’s complaint, the SCA lists David Knight as its treasurer and Joe Patton as its assistant treasurer. The PAC’s listed address is in Sanford.