UNC-CH students, faculty want money from 'Silent Sam' side deal returned
Days after a judge voided a $2.5 million deal to give the controversial "Silent Sam" monument to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, attorneys representing University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students and faculty are demanding that money given to the SCV in a separate deal be returned to the school.
Posted — UpdatedUnder the deal, which a UNC Board of Governors committee approved in November, the SCV took possession of the statue, and UNC-Chapel Hill put $2.5 million into a trust for the group to preserve it, as long as it wasn't located in any of the 14 North Carolina counties where a UNC campus is located.
The side agreement was put in place in case the $2.5 million settlement deal fell apart, according to Sturges, and Baddour didn’t address it when he threw out the main settlement.
Attorneys Elizabeth Haddix and Mark Dorosin, who represent UNC-Chapel Hill students and faculty members who fought to block the Silent Sam deal, sent letters Tuesday to Ripley Rand, the attorney representing UNC in the deal and Sturges, as well as to Sara Powell, the president of the local UDC chapter, saying that the $74,999 needs to be paid back to the university.
The letters state that paying the UDC "for assignment of its non-existent interest" in Silent Sam violates the emoluments section of North Carolina's constitution, as the group obtained state money where no public services were involved.
Attorney General Josh Stein was sent copies of all of the letters, but its unclear whether the Attorney General's Office will step into the dispute. The $74,999 was a dollar under the threshold at which the office is required to review payments made by state agencies.
The order also called for the trustee to provide an accounting of the $2.5 million in the trust within 10 days. Sturges already took $52,000 from the trust to pay for his work.
Haddix and Dorosin said in their letter to Sturges that they would like word from him by March 2 that he has returned that money to the trust.
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