IN DECEMBER 2008, LAROQUE
ALLEGEDLY USED COMPANY MONEY
TO BUY MORE THAN $15,000 WORTH
OF FABERGE-LIKE EGGS AND FABERGE
EGG-THEMED JEWELRY, INCLUDING
A NECKLACE AND EARRINGS.
ECDC borrowers received. Later
that year, Susan’s Carpet installed
carpet in LaRoque’s home, which
LaRoque again paid for with ECDC
funds. Shortly thereafter, Eatman
(described in the indictment either as “Susan’s Carpet Owner”
or “LaRoque’s Wife”) joined the
ECDC board. LaRoque married
her in 2007.
In January 2009, Susan LaRoque sold her carpet business
in hopes of buying an ice skating
rink in Greenville, N.C., according to the indictment. Later that
year, with yet more funds from
ECDC, she bought Bladez on Ice
for a few hundred thousand dollars. ECDC money also was used
to buy a new zamboni. In 2010,
the indictment alleges, LaRoque
and his wife also illegally used
taxpayer dollars to buy a house
for her daughter to rent.
LaRoque’s lawyer told the North
Carolina News & Observer that LaRoque will be vindicated in court.
His Republican colleagues in North
Carolina’s General Assembly seem
less supportive. After the grand
jury indicted LaRoque in July,
State House Speaker Thom Tillis
asked LaRoque to resign.
LaRoque obliged.
“I do not want my continued
presence in the General Assembly to be politicized or to distract
from the important work that still
needs to be done there,” he wrote
in a letter to Tillis. The trial will
start early next year.
LaRoque’s days as a lawmaker
might have been numbered anyway.
He lost a close primary contest in
May. Ahead of the election, he explained to a local reporter how he
evaluated himself as a lawmaker.
“I tell folks my greatest accomplishment’s when I can help a constituent, and my worst failure’s when I can’t,” he said.