☀️ In Today’s Edition

1. A Unlikely Friendship
2. A ‘Cop City’ Suit in Matthews
3. Bringing Back the Firing Squad?
4. What We’re Reading
5. Around the State

Rashmi Airan was a force of nature as a UNC-Chapel Hill student in the early 1990s. She was going places. And she did. Just not always places she expected. 

Earlier this month, she returned to campus to speak to law students about the crimes she committed as the closing attorney for a developer who was converting apartments into condos in South Florida. She pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire, mail, and bank fraud, and spent six months in federal prison.

At her side in Chapel Hill was the man who built the criminal case against her, former career federal prosecutor Joe Capone. John Drescher reports on their unlikely friendship.

He Helped Send Her to Prison. Now They’re Friends

Rashmi Airan was a rising star at UNC-Chapel Hill and Columbia Law School before she was sent to prison for fraud. Now she and the prosecutor who investigated her case share their story with law students.

How Airan and Capone became friends—from “target to teammate,” as she says—is a story of pride and ambition, of loss and shame, and ultimately, of redemption and rebirth. 

Have a news tip for our team? You can reach us at scoops@theassemblync.com.

A Fight Over a ‘Cop City’ in Matthews

Mina Ezikpe went to a morning meeting of Central Piedmont Community College’s board of trustees on March 12 with a friend and part-time student, Eboni Exceus, to learn more about a plan to build a $118-million public safety training complex on land adjacent to the school’s campus in Matthews. 

Ezikpe said she is opposed to the project partly because school officials have not been transparent and have been resistant to people getting even basic information. As an assistant public defender, she said she also was concerned about how a law-enforcement training facility might affect her clients.

The two women’s attendance at the meeting led to their ban from the campus, they alleged in a lawsuit filed last week against CPCC, its board of trustees, three unidentified security guards, and its president. Michael Hewlett has the story.

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N.C. Lawmakers Consider Bringing Back the Firing Squad

If a group of Republicans in the state House of Representatives has their way, North Carolina could join the handful of states that allow a firing squad to carry out capital punishment.

On Tuesday afternoon, a House judiciary committee advanced HB 270, which would revise execution methods available for the death penalty. The bill also would bring back the electric chair, an execution option that has not been used in this state since 1938, according to the state Department of Adult Correction.

The was introduced several days before South Carolina used a firing squad to execute Brad Sigmon, a 67-year-old death row inmate convicted of murdering an ex-girlfriend’s parents. Sigmon’s execution on March 7 was the first by firing squad in this country in 15 years, according to the Associated Press, and only the fourth in the United States since 1977.

Anne Blythe has more.

What We’re Reading

Flag On the Play: A 30-second Super Bowl ad for NYU Langone Health sent North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy on a tear, per the New York Times. But then he changed his mind.

Revved Up: Religion News Service reports that Rev. William Barber and two others were arrested while praying in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Monday, an action protesting the Republican budget bill.

The Mother Load: From fires to floods, families across the U.S. have faced devastating impacts of climate change in the last year. Bitter Southerner has a dispatch from Western North Carolina on how mothers are shouldering the burden.

Our Recent Stories

Better Call Roy?

Democrats’ Senate hopes of retaking the majority in 2026 hinge on a handful of undecided candidates, including former N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper.

Balanced Nutrition Must Repay State $101,000 

The nonprofit owned by Mark Robinson’s wife was dinged for violating regulations, claiming unallowable costs, and failing to keep records.

St. Andrews University to Close on May 5

Following decades of struggles for the small private school in Laurinburg, officials said it will cease operations in less than two weeks.