On September 8, Rep. Don Davis, the Democrat running for reelection in North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, attended an event in New Bern for the HUD Choice Neighborhoods grant.
While there, Davis spoke at a press conference. During the introductions led by Mayor Jeffrey Odham at the start of that press conference, Pastor Daimon L. King was mentioned as being in attendance (at the 4:28 timestamp).
King is a commissioner on the New Bern Housing Authority Board, but he's also a convicted and registered sex offender. According to state and court records, King has twice been sentenced to prison following convictions for offenses involving children.
In 1997, King worked as a marching band assistant at a high school outside of Raleigh. He was charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a 15-year-old student.
Here's more from The News and Observer's April 23, 1997 edition:
Police on Tuesday charged an Athens Drive High School marching band assistant with statutory rape, accusing him of having sex with a 15-year-old student.
Daimon Lorenzo King, 30, of Knightdale was in custody tuesday night at the Wake County jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond. He was order not to have any contact with the girl without the presence of her parents.
He faces two charges of statutory rape and one charge of taking indecent liberties with a child under 16.
He was convicted in 1998 and served almost five years in prison.
In 2010, King pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage female relative and served almost three years in prison. He is now required to register as a sex-offender for the rest of his life.
This isn't the first time Don Davis has had ties to those with abhorrent behavior towards children. He's been endorsed by the NC Forward Party, which promoted and partook in a pride event in Greensboro on September 12. That event, in which children were present, also featured the public display of adult toys, anti-police/anti-ICE/anti-Trump materials and signage, and numerous drag queens.
And Davis is not alone in cozying up to child predators. Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also has a troubling connection to a convicted child molester and registered sex offender.
Chad Sevearance-Turner was head of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber, but stepped down in 2016 after his sex offender past came to light. According to WCNC, Sevearance-Turner was once a youth minister who was found guilty of fondling a teenage boy in 1998. Turner allegedly "lured younger men to his apartment" where he "showed them pornography and tried to talk them into sex." One boy, who was 14 years old at the time, said he woke up to find Sevearance-Turner fondling him. The boy also said that Sevearance-Turner would "frequently ask him about sexual acts between men and women." Another victim said Sevearance-Turner "showed him a pornographic video" and a third said Sevearance-Turner made advances at him over a three-week period while staying in the boy's home.
He then moved to North Carolina where he became an active member of the LGBT Chamber.
Despite his troubling past, then-Gov. Roy Cooper stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sevearance-Turner, even posing for a group picture with him in 2018. That same year, Cooper also threw a birthday party for former North Carolina State Rep. Cecil Brockman, who was idicted this March for alleged sex crimes against minors.
Voters in North Carolina deserve a Congressman and Senator who represent their values, and it's clear that neither Don Davis nor Roy Cooper do.