EXCLUSIVE: Video Shows Dem AG Candidate Hugging Convicted Sex Offender After Receiving LGBTQ Award

A North Carolina Democrat running in a high-profile race to be the state’s attorney general hugged a convicted sex offender after receiving an LGBTQ award in 2022, according to video footage obtained by The Daily Wire.

Footage of the December 13, 2022 Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce event shows Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-NC) praising the work of LGBTQ activists on stage before embracing Chad Turner, a registered sex offender and CEO of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Turner, who has not responded to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire, was charged with three cases of lewd acts on minors under the age of 16.

“You are an enormously influential, and positive force for this city, for the people who live here, I’m so grateful for you,” Jackson told the assembled crowd, after the chamber awarded him the “Advancing Equity Award.”

After Jackson left the stage, Turner took the mic to condemn “harmful bills sitting in the hopper,” an apparent reference to efforts to protect women’s spaces from men who identify as transgender women. “It’s going to be up to us to keep those people in check,” he added.

Turner accused the boys of lying, but authorities sentenced him to 10 years in prison after convicting him in July 2000 of fondling a 15-year-old boy. He only served two years of this sentence, according to the Daily Mail, but is a registered sex offender under the North Carolina Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry.

Jackson is currently running against Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) in what is reported to be one of the “nastiest” and most expensive races that the state has yet seen. In Congress, Bishop has distinguished himself as a hard-hitting member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, while Jackson has won the accolades from far-left groups that support transgender surgeries and hormones for minors.

A Jackson spokesman told The Daily Wire that the congressman “did not know about an individual’s status,” and was simply given an award by a “local chamber of commerce for supporting economic development.” Jackson’s office did not say whether the congressman would return the award, or continue to work with the organization.

Turner, the sex offender, has gone by a number of other names, including Chad Sevearance-Turner and Chad Eugene Sevealance. He formerly served as a youth music minister at New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina, where multiple young men accused him of inviting them over for sleepovers in 1998 — and then fondling their genitals while they slept.

Still, Turner managed to make a name for himself within the Charlotte LGBTQ activist community — even though members knew he was a registered sex offender, as the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce’s Melissa Morris told QNotesCarolinas in 2016.

He began working as president of the group in 2013, according to this LinkedIn profile, and within three years the organization was getting high-profile attention. The Human Rights Campaign honored the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce with its “Organization of the Year Award” at its 2016 North Carolina Gala on Feb. 10, 2016.

“That organization has gone from 0 to 60 in less than seconds,” event organizer Dan Mauney said at the time. “And it’s all because of their board, because of their members, and HRC wanted to honor them and recognize them.”

In March 2016, a number of local North Carolina media outlets reported that Turner had stepped down as president of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce after the North Carolina Values Coalition brought his alleged pedophile past into the news. He even gave a statement to the LGBTQ outlet “QNotesCarolinas,” dismissing the details of his sex offender past as irrelevant, telling the publication: “What I didn’t want to do was allow the right to continue to detract and to continue throwing stones at an organization that has done absolutely nothing but help individuals and our community in our city.”

But Turner’s resignation appears to have been a media ploy at best, and an outright lie at worst. The Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce still lists him as its president and CEO, and his LinkedIn profile states that he served as the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce president from January 2013 to December 2020, and as its chief executive officer from December 2020 to present.

“My role as CEO at the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce allows me to drive initiatives that support and elevate LGBT+ businesses and professionals,” Turner’s LinkedIn profile says.

In spite of high-profile news reports on his background, Charlotte Pride selected Turner for its “2023 Harvey Milk Award,” recognizing his “exceptional leadership, service to the community,” and his championing of LGBTQ causes in the “Charlotte community and beyond.”

Following media reports highlighting Turner’s past, Charlotte Pride announced in August 2023 that it would not be honoring anyone with the award that year, claiming: “We do not give every single award out every year. Charlotte Pride was originally going to do Harvey Milk, but upon further discussion, decided not to give out that award this year.”

An internet archive shows that the group was planning on honoring Turner, but removed its page. Charlotte Pride did not respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment on whether the organization was aware of Turner’s past, and whether Charlotte Pride itself employs registered sex offenders with offenses against minors. The Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.