WBTV urges release of town hall video of Mooresville mayor’s late night encounter
North Carolina’s public records law allows for the release of town hall surveillance video that shows Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney and a woman at Town Hall in the early morning of Oct. 11, 2024, and police responding to two alarms that overnight, a lawyer for WBTV argued before a judge Monday.
WBTV sued the town for the video’s release in June 2025.
“These are public records and not sensitive materials” as the town argues, lawyer Lauren Russell told Judge Richard Gottlieb during a hearing in Iredell County Civil Superior Court in Statesville.
Carney and other town officials didn’t attend the hearing. Regarding allegations he was pantless in town hall at the time, Carney has said he was cleaning vomit off himself.
Transparency of public officials also is at issue, and the video “is of great public interest,” Russell said.
Just because Mooresville Police Chief Ron Campurciani reviewed the video doesn’t make the video part of an investigation and exempt from being released, she said. The chief said in a court deposition that nothing criminal was found, she said.
Keith Merritt of the Charlotte law firm Hamilton Stephens Steele + Martin, a lawyer retained by the town, argued in court that most video cameras in Town Hall “are not in public areas,” including the one cited in the WBTV lawsuit. And someone with nefarious purposes could see where to dodge cameras inside Town Hall if the video were released, he argued.
“There are vulnerabilities in the system that could be revealed,” Merritt said. “We strongly believe (the video) is sensitive security information.”
Merritt said all but the lobby area of the two-story town hall is off limits to the public.
“We don’t care what’s shown on the video,” Merritt told Gottlieb, a judge from Forsyth County. “It could be dancing elephants. We don’t care.”
Gottlieb said he “will take under advisement” everything the sides presented before ruling on the matter. He didn’t say when that might be.
Mayor says he went to Town Hall to sober up
Carney and the woman “twice triggered motion detectors at Town Hall, alerting the Mooresville Police Department,” according to the WBTV lawsuit.
The woman was a paid public relations consultant for the town, according to the lawsuit and documents obtained by The Charlotte Observer through a public records request.
In an interview, Carney told WBTV that he went to Town Hall to retrieve his work phone, “and then stayed for a few hours in order to sober up following a dinner with Town commissioners,” the lawsuit states.
“He took an unexpected leave of absence for three weeks after following the incident, which he said was to take bereavement and to address substance use issues,” according to the complaint.
The videos would merely show him walking in the hallways and going to the bathroom, Carney told WBTV, the lawsuit states.
“There is significant public interest in viewing videos capturing the Mayor and a paid Town consultant in a municipal building outside of business hours, and the Mooresville Police Department’s interactions with the Mayor when its officers were called to the scene twice that early morning by security alarms,” according to WBTV’s complaint.
In denying the station’s request for the video, Town Attorney Sharon Crawford wrote that the videos are “criminal intelligence records” not subject to release under the state’s open records law.
In February, Carney and Mooresville Police Chief Ron Campurciani refuted claims in two federal lawsuits against the town about Carney’s behavior during two late-night encounters involving police. A third lawsuit has since been filed. All three lawsuits allege retaliation against town officials.
“Enough is enough,” Carney said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer and Observer news partner WSOC. “We need to come out and set the record straight.”
Carney said claims are false in the lawsuits filed against him, the town and other Mooresville officials by a former IT worker and by ex-assistant police chief Frank Falzone.
Carney has repeatedly said in media interviews that he fell ill after medications he was on mixed with alcohol after a gathering at a bar near Town Hall.
“I never thought, to be fair, that vomiting and making a mess would become a national story,” the mayor said Wednesday. “I really couldn’t have imagined that.
“And I would tell the public, I am so sorry,” he said. “I truly didn’t think anything other than I needed my phone and then, when I felt bad, this is a safe space ... a place where, when I felt better, I would go home.”
This story was originally published March 16, 2026 at 2:54 PM.