RALEIGH, N.C. — Former North Carolina state Rep. Cecil Brockman won $2 million in state funding for a nonprofit in High Point that provides services for people with autism and other disabilities in 2023. Since then, nearly a fifth of that money went to his predecessor and former boss, Marcus Brandon.

Now the state is investigating whether taxpayer money was used to pay for lobbying of state lawmakers.

Documents the nonprofit Puzzle Play provided to the Office of State Budget and Management say Brandon’s consulting firm received the money for “fundraising consulting,” taking in 20% of every dollar raised until the fees reached $350,000. When an OSBM official spoke with Puzzle Play’s director, she said Brandon lobbied on behalf of the nonprofit, according to OSBM Chief Operating Officer Michael Arnold.

North Carolina lobbying laws prevent state money from being used to pay for lobbying. OSBM officials referred the spending to the North Carolina secretary of state’s office, which regulates lobbying. The office then reached out to Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.

The secretary of state’s office “referred allegations regarding the lobbyist for Puzzle Play to my office and I requested an SBI investigation,” Freeman said in a text message.

OSBM has disallowed the $350,000 paid to Brandon, and nearly $59,000 in payments to other vendors that lacked documentation, according to an OSBM audit obtained by The News & Observer through a public records request. OSBM reports to Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat.

When a payment is disallowed, the money can still be spent, but it has to be redirected to another purpose.

Brandon represented the legislative district that includes High Point for two terms ending in 2014. Brockman, a former legislative aide for Brandon and a fellow Democrat, succeeded him.

Brandon is not registered to lobby for Puzzle Play. Last year, he registered to lobby for only one group, CarolinaCAN, a nonprofit that is part of the 50CAN national network that advocates for educational access. Brandon is CarolinaCAN’s executive director, and he has been an advocate for charter school expansion and taxpayer-supported scholarships for students to attend private schools.

OSBM is now reviewing grants to two other recipients that have also paid Brandon, his consulting business or CarolinaCAN. Those recipients are the Hayden-Harman Foundation in Burlington that received $4.5 million and the Welfare Reform Liaison Project that received $750,000, both in the 2023 budget.

The foundation has paid Brandon $198,000, OSBM records show, and $25,000 to CarolinaCAN. The liaison project has paid his consulting firm $85,000. All told, Brandon, his consulting firm and the nonprofit he leads received $658,000 from mid-2023 to mid-2025 from directed grants given to the three nonprofits in the state budget.

No lobbying, nonprofits say

Brandon and Puzzle Play CEO Candace Hayes told The N&O in interviews he has not engaged in lobbying for Puzzle Play. Hayes said she worked directly with Brockman to get the money, and Brandon said he only provided advice on how to win money from government agencies, foundations and other sources.

“You just have to understand what a fundraising consultant is,” he said. “We don’t ask for money.”

Leo John, the director of the secretary of state’s lobbying division, said the office can’t comment on lobbying complaints or investigations. State law makes them confidential.

The Hayden-Harman Foundation contributes to many causes, according to its incorporation papers, including college scholarships, community housing, healthcare and emergency assistance. Foundation Director Patrick Harman said Brandon didn’t lobby for its grant. But the foundation contracted with Brandon to help distribute much of the $4.5 million to smaller “grassroots” agencies in the High Point area after Brockman recommended they use him, Harman recalled.

It paid CarolinaCAN to advocate for school choice, and CarolinaCAN contracted with Brandon to perform that work, Harman said. Brandon said that work did not involve lobbying lawmakers and other state officials, and focused on notifying the public about opportunity and special needs scholarships.

Harman said Brockman approached the foundation about obtaining a grant for them in the budget. Representatives for the liaison project, founded in 1997, could not be reached.

Harman said he was aware that in the years leading up to the appropriations Brockman had been talking about securing state appropriations for various nonprofit services in his district.

Lawmaker resigns

Brockman resigned his seat in the House late last year after being charged on multiple counts of sex crimes with a minor. He was indicted by a grand jury on additional charges in March and is currently in jail awaiting trial.

Brockman was accused of having a sexual relationship with a minor who was 15 or younger and has refuted the charges. He said he did not know the alleged victim was underage.

The N&O reached out to Brockman, who is being held in the Guilford County Detention Center, but he declined to comment on the funding for Puzzle Play or its ties to Brandon.

Before succeeding him in the House in 2015, Brockman also managed Brandon’s unsuccessful congressional campaign in 2014.

While in the Legislature, Brockman frequently drew ire from his Democratic colleagues for voting with Republicans on key bills or missing a vote on a veto override.

In 2023, Brockman defended his decision to vote with Republicans to pass the budget, which included the funding for Puzzle Play, by saying that it included $29 million in total for his “majority poor Black district.”

Brockman also sought money for nonprofits and businesses serving the High Point area in 2021.

The budget that year included a $1.4 million grant to the Hayden-Harman Foundation and a $300,000 grant to the Welfare Reform Liaison Project. Harman said the foundation, founded in 2000, didn’t ask for that grant either.

Brandon said the liaison project paid him to teach entrepreneurship skills to at-risk youth in High Point. Roughly 45 middle school and high school students have taken the classes over the past three years, he said.

None of his work for the three nonprofits involved lobbying, Brandon said. He has talked with investigators with the lobbying division about Puzzle Play, he added.

“We’ve been very cooperative with them and I think there is a consensus that there was no lobbying,” he said. “I stand firm that I’ve never lobbied. All of the work we did was legitimate work and it was crucial work.”

House leaders in their 2021 budget proposal also earmarked $50,000 for Q’s Corner, a High Point gym that Hayes owns and is the home for Puzzle Play. Hayes incorporated the for-profit Q’s Corner in 2018 and the nonprofit Puzzle Play in 2019. Hayes said she did not ask for it.

The $50,000 did not end up in the final budget. But $150,000 earmarked for a “sensory garden” for people with autism in High Point went to Puzzle Play by accident, OSBM officials said. Lawmakers had provided little detail who the recipient was, and so OSBM officials assumed it was intended for Puzzle Play, which accepted the money and created the garden.

High Point officials who were planning the garden discovered the money had been given to Puzzle Play and queried lawmakers, who then found another $150,000 so the city could create one too, OSBM officials said. It’s unclear who asked for the money for Q’s Corner or the sensory garden. High Point officials could not be reached.

Last year, Brockman sought another $5 million each for Puzzle Play and the Hayden-Harman Foundation, and $750,000 for the liaison project, according to a list of budget requests he submitted to Stein. No state budget passed last year.

Grants investigated

Since 2024, The N&O has published as part of its Power & Secrecy series several reports about tens of millions of dollars in directed grants and other earmarks that lawmakers inserted into massive spending bills that benefited people close to them.

Such spending often escapes scrutiny because Republicans, with help from the district lines they have drawn to favor their party, have held both chambers with supermajorities or near supermajorities for much of the past 12 years. That allows them to hammer out bills behind closed doors and pass them with little or no Democratic support.

Many earmarks appeared in the final versions of spending bills that rank-and-file lawmakers had to vote on with little time to read and no opportunity to change.

Some of that spending drew the attention of a federal grand jury in Raleigh in 2024, with several subpoenas issued to state and local agencies and officials. But there has been little evidence of any grand jury activity since early 2025, when President Donald Trump, a Republican, took office.

Numerous national news organizations have since reported that Trump has pushed Justice Department officials to investigate and indict his perceived enemies while dropping cases against his supporters.

This week, Ellis Boyle, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which includes Raleigh, announced his office was prosecuting former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey over a picture he took of seashells arranged in the numbers “86” and “47” on a North Carolina beach and published on social media.

The number 86 is sometimes used as slang to throw out, get rid of or refuse service to, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Trump, in his second term, is the 47th president.

A federal grand jury indicted Comey on charges of making a threat against the president and transmitting the threat across state lines.

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