The chairman of the Surry County North Carolina Board of Elections has resigned after he was accused of putting MDMA and cocaine in ice cream he allegedly gave to his two teenage granddaughters.
Once the allegations became public, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek called for James Yokeley, 66, to resign.
“The arrest and investigation of the Surry County Board of Elections Chair is very disturbing. This matter distracts from election management in Surry County and must be addressed quickly and directly,” Boliek said, according to WXII12.
Boliek said that Yokeley “needs to resign, and Surry County needs a new Board of Elections Chair.”
“If he doesn’t resign, I’ll be requesting the State Board take action today to remove him as Chair,” the state auditor said.
According to the Wilmington Police Department, Yokeley flagged down a patrolling police officer at a Sheetz convenience store, and informed them that his granddaughters had found “hard objects” — later determined to be pills — in the ice cream they had recently purchased from a nearby Dairy Queen.
Medical responders were called to the scene. They checked the teens to make sure they had not ingested anything dangerous and found that they had not. Police seized the pills and, after a preliminary test, determined they contained cocaine and MDMA.
The pills were sent to a state lab for further testing.
Investigators pulled surveillance video from nearby cameras and spotted Yokeley allegedly planting the pills in the ice cream.
Yokeley was arrested on Tuesday and charged with contaminating food or drink with a controlled substance, felony child abuse, and felony possession of Schedule 1 narcotics, according to police.
He was booked into the New Hanover County Detention Center and released on a $100,000 bond. He has yet to enter a plea and is expected to return to court on September 11.
In his resignation letter, Yokeley said that he did not make the decision to resign “lightly,” but did so as it was in the “best interests” of the state government.
Despite resigning, Yokeley insisted that the allegations made against him were false.
“After much prayer, thoughtful reflection and consultation, I have concluded that it’s in the best interest of the State Board of Elections and Surry County Board of Elections, regarding my own falsely accused circumstances, to step down at this time,” he wrote. “Based on the truth and facts, I remain prayerfully confident that I will be exonerated of all accusations leveled against me.”
The North Carolina State Board of Elections said it will replace Yokeley with a new chair as soon as possible.
Boliek released a statement on Thursday after Yokeley’s resignation.
“As I had called for, the Chair of the Surry County Board of Elections has resigned. With his resignation, the Surry County Board and State Board can now, without distraction, move forward with the process of appointing a replacement,” Boliek said.
