On Wednesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour allowed the Sons of Confederate Veterans to keep nearly $82,000 in public funds they’d spent on legal fees and expenses while arranging a now-overturned $2.5 million settlement with the UNC System for the disposition of the Confederate monument Silent Sam.
If you’re keeping score, Baddour is the same judge who first approved the agreement the day before Thanksgiving, then vacated it in February.
Baddour approved the SCV keeping the $52,000 it said it had already spent $52,000 on legal fees, the more than $12,300 it said it owed in legal fees, and the more than $17,000 it said it owed to lawyer Matthew S. McGonagle for his role as trustee.
The decision comes with UNC-Chapel Hill students off-campus, completing the semester online because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Major decisions about Silent Sam have a tendency to come down when students aren’t around. Weird.
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