Colon Willoughby, the district attorney for Wake County, has initiated a criminal inquiry into unreported flights by the campaign of Gov. Bev Perdue.

Willoughby said Friday that he met with officials at the State Bureau of Investigation last week and asked them to look into 42 flights on private aircraft that were not properly reported as donations by the governor's 2008 campaign.

The district attorney stressed that he had seen no evidence of criminal acts by Perdue herself, but he said the actions of some of her staff and campaign donors warranted further inquiry.

The State Board of Elections issued a civil fine of $30,000 against Perdue's campaign last month for late reporting of the flights. But in a split vote, the board found there was no evidence of a deliberate effort to break the law. The five-member board, appointed by the governor, has a Democratic Party majority.

Willoughby, who is also a Democrat, said the elections board may have been "a little hasty" in its decision.

"I believe there were some issues the elections board did not address," Willoughby said. "Given that the board had already resolved the matter to its satisfaction, I felt it was appropriate to ask the SBI to get involved."

Efforts to reach Perdue for comment were unsuccessful.

Marc Farinella, the spokesman for the Perdue campaign, repeated his assertion that no one within the campaign did anything intentionally wrong.

"We expect the SBI will find the same thing the State Board of Elections has found, which is that no one on the campaign committee intentionally violated any law," said Farinella, a Florida-based political strategist. "If the district attorney feels it's appropriate for them to take a look, we'll help any way we can."

A criminal probe of the governor's campaign will focus even more attention on the SBI, which has been rocked in recent months over revelations about shoddy work at the state crime lab, the withholding of evidence and the use of unscientific forensic procedures.

Unlike other state law enforcement agencies, the SBI is not under the supervision of the governor. Attorney General Roy Cooper oversees the SBI.

SBI spokeswoman Noelle Talley said Friday that the bureau's professional standards division had already initiated an investigation into Perdue's campaign flights. As the district attorney for Wake County, Willoughby has prosecutorial jurisdiction over criminal matters within the state capital.

Some of the issues agents will likely examine are outlined in two reports written by Kim Strach, the lead investigator at the State Board of Elections.

Strach's investigation of the Perdue campaign has led to friction with her boss, state Elections Director Gary Bartlett. Strach's impartiality has also been called into question by Farinella and other Democratic Party operatives who point to her husband's past work as legal counsel to the state Republican Party.

Among the issues uncovered by Strach and her staff that were not taken up by the elections board is a reported $3,048.50 in-kind donation for a December 2007 flight on a private aircraft from Fulenwider Enterprises, a family-owned business in Morganton that operates fast-food restaurants. Members of the Fulenwider family are frequent Democratic donors, providing at least $10,000 in cash donations to Perdue.

According to a report filed by the campaign, the flight was paid for by James Fleming, a Morganton barber with no other record of providing contributions in the state's campaign finance database. In an interview with an elections investigator, Fleming said he remembered making a contribution to Perdue's campaign, but he said he knew nothing about paying for a flight, according to Strach's report.

On Friday, Willoughby praised Strach's work. Past investigations by the elections investigator uncovered campaign-finance violations by former Gov. Mike Easley, former state House Speaker Jim Black and former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps.

"Her thoroughness in this investigation is typical of what we have seen from her in the past," Willoughby said.

Leake, who has served as chairman of the elections board for 18 years under three Democratic administrations, said Friday that he would provide any help he could to the criminal investigation.

He agreed with Willoughby that the board might not have taken enough time to fully examine some of the issues outlined in Strach's most recent report before voting last month to close its investigation into Perdue's flights.

"There are some things that I have since learned more about that I think we should have looked into further," said Leake, a Mars Hill lawyer. "We obviously are not going to do anything that interferes or would not be productive for (Willoughby's) investigation."