Democrat Womack Wins NC Seat Amid Pending Felony Car Theft Charge
Newly elected NC Congresswoman Lakesha Womack faces felony car theft charge after failing to return a rental car.
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Lakesha Womack, the newly elected Democrat from North Carolina, has won a congressional race despite facing a pending felony charge related to a 2019 car rental incident. Womack, a first-time candidate who raised around $56,000, secured 51.1 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Tim Moore by a margin of about 6,415 votes out of more than 288,000 cast, according to unofficial results from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Car Theft Charge Amid Campaign
Weeks before Election Day, Womack was served with a criminal summons on a pending Class H felony charge stemming from an allegedly unreturned 2019 Toyota Corolla rented from Budget Car Rental. Court records show the original summons was issued in January 2020 but was returned unserved the following month. It was reissued and served on Womack on October 11 at a Polk County campaign rally.
Under North Carolina law, willfully failing to return a hired motor vehicle valued above $4,000 is a felony. The summons listed the vehicle’s value at $20,000. In a campaign video and subsequent interviews, Womack acknowledged that she did not return the rental car. She explained that she and her young son were homeless at the time, had no stable address to receive notices, and believed the matter had been resolved and amounted to money owed to the rental company.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Court documents obtained by Channel 9 accuse Womack of failing to return a Toyota Corolla to Budget Rental Car by Oct. 13, 2019. The criminal summons was originally issued three months later. But it wasn’t served until about two weeks ago. When asked about the rental car, Channel 9 Government Reporter Joe Bruno asked, “What happened to the rental car?” Womack responded, “I can’t talk about that because it is an ongoing legal case. But I will say that if it were something much more serious, then I probably would have been served and charged much quicker than a week before early voting started.”
While Womack declined to share specifics on Thursday, prior to being served the warrant, she told supporters on Facebook she had experienced homelessness with her then 10-year-old son. “At one point, I had a rental car, and I did not return the rental car on time,” she said. “And I did not know that they had filed a case against me for this because, again, I was homeless, so I had nowhere to receive mail.”
The pending felony case will continue after Womack takes office in January.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
