HUFFINGTON
10.07.12
ANGER MANAGEMENT
cerely hope karma comes around
to bite you in the butt when
election time comes.”
SHUTTERSTOCK / RITU MANOJ JETHANI
A FIGHTIN’ MAN
However collaborative and appealing to Democrats LaRoque
had been when he first ran for
office, by 2010 a more combative
side started to show. He had been
voted out of office in 2006, but by
2010 wanted his seat back from
Democrat Van Braxton.
Braxton played hardball, distributing campaign flyers that
alleged LaRoque, through his rural lending operation, screwed the
proprietor of a barbecue restaurant through irresponsible lending
that ended in foreclosure.
“LaRoque stole my business,”
Bruce Patterson, the business
owner, said in the flyer. “He
stole my home.”
Patterson had borrowed
$379,900 from the East Carolina
Development Company in the late
‘90s, but fell behind on payments
in 2006, leading ECDC to foreclose on both the restaurant and
Patterson’s home upstairs. Patterson claimed LaRoque pushed the
financing on him, then wouldn’t
negotiate a modification when
times got tough.
LaRoque insisted he hadn’t
done anything improper, and then
sued Braxton for defamation, continuing the case even after he’d
won back his state seat. Braxton’s
legal team began requesting documentation from LaRoque. The
lawyers had uncovered an audit by
the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General questioning LaRoque’s
business practices and suggesting,
as Braxton’s attorney put it to th