MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Mooresville’s mayor isn’t denying claims that he wasn’t wearing pants inside the town hall after hours, but he told Channel 9 in a sit-down interview on Wednesday that he wasn’t doing anything inappropriate.
The town faces two lawsuits tied to claims against Mayor Chris Carney. A former IT professional at the town hall claims he was fired in retaliation after he reported seeing the mayor walk around the building without pants on back in 2024. The other incident was in January 2024 and involved Mooresville Police Chief Ron Campurciani.
The mayor told Channel 9’s Erika Jackson that he wants to set the record straight and that “enough is enough” after the last 16 months.
Carney said the facts don’t support the claims made in both lawsuits.
Jackson spent hours combing through more than 50 pages in the lawsuits filed last month. Mooresville’s mayor and chief of police told us the suits “are filled with gaps and false statements.”
Carney told Jackson that on the night of the town hall incident, he met with another commissioner and several other people and had a bottle of wine, and he realized he had left his town phone inside the town hall, so he went to get it.
He said he got sick after the wine mixed with his anti-anxiety medication.
“But from there, it turned to nausea, and so I went in and I got sick in my trash can, then jumped up and ran to the bathroom, and I was sick there,” Carney said.
Carney said he took his pants off because he threw up on them.
“They were getting cleaned up. That was it. I mean, it’s really, honestly that simple,” Carney said. “I never thought, to be fair, vomiting and making a mess would become a national story.”
Carney told Jackson, “Everybody who’s reviewed that film will tell you, you’ll never see me doing something inappropriate.”
A separate complaint filed by former assistant police chief Frank Falzone claims that police captain Russell Clark took part in a traffic stop involving Carney, and that the captain “observed behavior suggesting the mayor may have been impaired and that chief Campurciani was present.”
Falzone claims there was no usable body-worn recording of the incident.
Jackson asked Carney if he was impaired behind the wheel, and he denied the accusation. Campurciani says the two met at the intersection to chat when Captain Clark drove by.
“There wasn’t any body cam because Captain Clark never gets out of his car. Now, there might have been car camera video because when you turn on the lights, the camera automatically clicks on,” Campurciani said.
“You’re saying that that body camera video never existed because there was never a traffic stop,” Jackson asked.
“I’m pretty sure that his car didn’t come to a complete stop. If it did, it was momentarily, but I think it was always at a slow roll. But officer Clark never got out of his car,” Campurciani said.
Falzone says he asked another employee to find the video from the traffic stop, and days later, Campurciani approached him about a citizen complaint from an incident the year before. Falzone alleges the senior town officials retaliated against him for speaking out, and he claims he was forced to retire under the threat of losing his pension.
“There was nothing ever said like ‘you better retire,’” Campurciani said.
The chief says Falzone would have lost his job if he didn’t retire because of the outcome of the internal investigation by U.S. ISS into the citizen’s complaint.
“I think that’s very interesting, that they’re not being sued because they’re the ones that conducted the investigation. We didn’t conduct the investigation; they did,” Campurciani said.
Both of the lawsuits are still pending.
“Why should people believe what you have to say instead of these two people who took their really serious allegations to court?” Jackson asked.
“The difference is the people who have been so kind deserve to at least hear my own words, and that’s why we’re here today, and I’ll let the lawyers work out the rest,” Carney said.
The mayor and police chief both said they don’t plan on settling.
Carney said he entered this term knowing it would be his last. He has no plans to run again in 2027.
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