Message wasn't spam, but people got canned.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler - City of Durham investigates Triangle Economic Development Corp. Director Anita Bennett for fraud in small-business loan program she administered - Brief Article

Raleigh to Durham: Read your e-mail.

Two years ago, members of Durham's economic-development staff ignored a warning that Raleigh was on the verge of firing a consultant that the Bull City was about to hire. Now Durham's district attorney and federal investigators are trying to figure what happened to $828,000 in loans that the consultant handled for the city. Three bureaucrats have quit or been canned, and the mayor lost his seat after the loans became a campaign issue.

Durham hired Anita Bennett, director of Triangle Economic Development Corp., in July 1999 to run a new small-business loan program for the city. Federal auditors say half of the 28 loans she made went to businesses that might not exist, used nonexistent deeds of trust as collateral or haven't made loan payments. Nobody had been charged by late November, but DA Jim Hardin says he believes "multiple state and federal criminal violations occurred."

Bennett's lawyer says the problems are the city's fault. "She was just a contractor," says Jonathan Koffa of Zebulon. "In monitoring the loans, there was some confusion about who was supposed to do what. You can see by the resignations and firings, obviously some folks failed to do their jobs." Bennett, who in two years was paid $138,000, refused to comment.

Raleigh's director of community development sent Kendall Abernathy, Durham's director of housing and community development, an e-mail in March 1999 about Bennett's "rocky" status. She passed it on to her husband, Ted Abernathy, who, as director of economic and employment development, oversaw the loan program.

He resigned in December...