A Fayetteville voter is challenging the candidacy of District 5 City Council candidate Enrique Roberto “Ranger Rick” Murillo on the premise that he lied on his election paperwork when he said he has no criminal felony convictions.
Murillo is running against incumbent City Council Member Lynne Greene for the District 5 seat.
South Carolina court records say Murillo pleaded guilty to a felony of first-degree assault and battery in January 2012. This was in a plea bargain that allowed Murillo to avoid a sexual assault conviction.
Murillo told CityView this week that he believes the records are inaccurate. He contends his plea bargain was supposed to be for a second-degree assault charge, which is a misdemeanor. “I’ve always just remembered ‘second degree,’ and that was it,” Murillo said.
Murillo said he would visit South Carolina and attempt to obtain a written transcript of what was said in the courtroom in 2012 when he pleaded guilty. He is hopeful this will show that the court documents are erroneous.
North Carolina state law says it is a crime — a felony, with punishment ranging from probation to two years in prison — for political candidates to lie on the candidacy forms about any felony convictions they have in their pasts. (There are exceptions for people whose records were expunged, who have received pardons of innocence, or whose convictions were overturned and dismissed.)
The Cumberland County Board of Elections plans to hold a hearing at 1 p.m. Aug. 12 to consider the challenge, county Elections Director Angie Amaro said. It will be in room 118 of the Cumberland County Courthouse, 117 Dick St. in Fayetteville.
“Once challenged, the burden is on the candidate to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she is qualified to be a candidate for the office,” says a guide published by the State Board of Elections.
People with felony convictions are allowed to run
North Carolinians with felony convictions forfeit their right to vote and to run for office until they complete the terms of their sentences. This includes any period in which the person is under supervision by the criminal justice system (known as probation or parole).
Once the sentence is completed, including the period of probation or parole, the person’s right to vote and run for office is automatically reinstated.
If a person with a felony criminal record wants to run for office, the candidate must tell election officials about their record and complete additional paperwork.
Previous charge
Murillo told CityView the sex offense charge stemmed from a weekend trip to Myrtle Beach in 2011.
Murillo met a woman at a club and exchanged phone numbers with her, he said, then he and she separated and went to other places. She called him later, he said, then met him in his hotel room.
“We had sexual intercourse,” Murillo said, which she later reported was non-consensual.
He was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct. South Carolina law says this is sexual battery committed by force or coercion, or sexual battery committed without force or coercion on a person who “is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.”
Months later, Murillo said, he was told that the woman was no longer in the Myrtle Beach area and no longer available for the prosecution of the case. His lawyer presented him with an option to plead to a lesser charge, he said.
“And he said, ‘Hey, well, it won’t be anything. It’ll be a second-degree assault. It won’t be a sexual charge, no registry, no felony, and that’s what it is,’” Murillo said.
While Murillo recalls it as a second-degree misdemeanor conviction, a sentencing document for this case has “Assault and Battery 1st degree” written on it. He saw a copy of the document on Wednesday and acknowledged his signature on the document.
The form lists the offense as “non-violent.”
Murillo wondered how closely he scrutinized the sentencing form on the day he pleaded guilty.
“The lawyer told me one thing, you know,” he said. “Did I read it? Did I skip it? Or did I look at the ‘non-violent’ thing and said, ‘OK, this looks good’?” he said.
The record says a judge gave Murillo a three-year suspended sentence (meaning he did not go to prison) with a year of probation. He said the sentencing part of the court record is accurate, and that he completed the terms of his probation.
The statutes say the maximum sentence for first-degree assault and battery is 10 years, while the maximum sentence for second-degree is three years.
Council Member Greene: Rules must be followed
Melene Hatcher filed the challenge to Murillo’s candidacy on July 24.
Hatcher, a friend of City Council Member Lynne Greene, said she filed the challenge to help Greene, who is out of the country on vacation and is unavailable to do it herself before the deadline on Friday, Aug. 1.
Greene told CityView this week that she would have filed the complaint if she weren’t out of town.
“It’s not about that he had a felony charge against him,” Greene said. “You know, we all do things in our past that we’re not proud of.” Her focus is on whether Murillo accurately answered the felony record question on the candidacy form, she said.
“You know, I owe it to my constituents to bring it to the forefront that, ‘Hey, he didn’t properly answer this question.’” Greene said. “We have this form, and we’re put through a process, and if we’re not going to hold true to that process, are you going to hold true to the process that we have to follow as a council member? To me, there’s not a lot of difference.”
Murillo has had other legal issues
Murillo has other legal entanglements besides the South Carolina assault case. One of these was another accusation of rape, in Fayetteville in 2014. He said he believed it was a consensual sexual encounter; he took that case to trial in 2016 and was found not guilty.
He said two drunken driving incidents when he was serving in the Army ended his military career in 2011.
Murillo said the Army gave him what’s known as an other than honorable discharge. This is an administrative discharge (and is less severe than a dishonorable discharge), generally issued to soldiers who violate military law or are convicted of breaking civilian law, says the Law for Veterans website. The Army also demoted Murillo from sergeant first class (E-7) to private (E-1), he said, and took away his status as a Special Forces soldier. (CityView was unable to independently verify this information this week.)
Murillo attributed some of his legal issues to excessive alcohol drinking as he tried to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder following multiple deployments and getting shot five times while downrange.
A search of North Carolina’s eCourts criminal court records portal produces 19 entries from 2005 to 2021 in which Murillo is listed as the defendant. In addition to the 2014 rape case, these include traffic infractions, allegations of fighting, being intoxicated and disruptive, disorderly conduct, and drunken driving.
The most recent cases were a speeding ticket and a seatbelt ticket, both issued in 2021.
Most of the charges were dismissed. Murillo pleaded guilty in 2016 to one of the drunken driving charges.
In one of the cases — allegations of assault-on-a-female (a domestic violence charge) and making harassing phone calls — the judge charged the alleged victim with making a frivolous prosecution and charged her $180 in court costs.
‘I needed to fix myself’
Murillo said that after he got out of the Army, he had three years of “finding myself in situations, going partying, doing different things” that got him into trouble, “or sitting with my friends and having dinner, and they’re asking me, ‘What are you going to do to help yourself?’”
In 2015, he said, his best friend killed himself.
“That’s when I realized I needed to fix myself,” Murillo said. “And that’s what I tried to do.” He said since then he has become a suicide prevention advocate, attended college, gotten married, and now he operates a welding business.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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