news-record.com

RALEIGH — A preliminary review of accusations that a state House member embraced a teenage female page and had been drinking before speeding to work has been sent to a legislative ethics panel, House Speaker Joe Hackney said Wednesday.

The report, assembled by House Sergeant-at-Arms Bob Samuels and presented to Hackney, makes no recommendations about what, if anything, should happen to Rep. Cary Allred, R-Alamance. Allred said he's done nothing wrong.

Hackney, D-Orange, said the report was given to the Legislative Ethics Committee, a joint House-Senate panel that will decide whether further scrutiny is needed and if ethics laws may have been violated.

The case also could wind up in the House Ethics Committee, which can investigate more broadly the actions of House members on the floor. Punishments at the House's disposal range from reprimand to expulsion, or no action may be taken.

The review collected written statements from Allred, his colleagues, General Assembly police and the supervisor of pages about what happened during the April 27 evening floor session of the House.

Several House members wrote that they saw Rep. Cary Allred hug and kiss a teenage page at the back of the House floor, and that it made them uneasy.

"I personally found the scene distasteful and highly disturbing," wrote Rep. Mitchell Setzer, R-Catawba.

Allred was absent from the House floor Wednesday and didn't return a telephone call to his office. But he repeated in a letter his earlier statement that the page was a 17-year-old who grew up across the street from his house and is like a granddaughter to him. Allred said he kissed her on the cheek and told her that he was glad she was a page.

Pages are volunteers from members' districts who serve in one-week intervals. The page supervisor and the General Assembly police said the teenager and her parents did not want to file a complaint.

Two other Republicans wrote that Allred appeared to have been drinking or smelled of alcohol and was particularly agitated during a back-and-forth with Hackney earlier that evening.

Allred, who has served 10 terms in the General Assembly, including eight in the House, wrote that he "was not inappropriate or impaired" that evening.

Allred said he had one drink before being stopped by a trooper en route to Raleigh. He was initially let go with a warning but then cited four days later for going 102 mph in a 65-mph zone. His court date is June 10 in Orange County.