By GARY D. ROBERTSON

Associated Press

RALEIGH -- After interviews with former Gov. Mike Easley and his ex-security chief, an outside group of attorneys found no evidence anyone destroyed intentionally or hid state Highway Patrol records for Easley's travel in 2005.

Gov. Beverly Perdue's office on Thursday released the report she requested in August from the three lawyers -- former U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan, ex-state Supreme Court Justice Willis Whichard and former Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Walker.

The panel talked with Easley, patrol Capt. Alan Melvin, who was head of Easley's security detail from 2003 to 2007, and a patrol administrative assistant among others.

"While we found minor inconsistencies in the stories about the records, we did not find the records themselves or any clear indication of wrongdoing in their disappearance or destruction," the nine-page report said.

The records were discovered missing as federal authorities probed Easley's airline flights as part of a criminal investigation of activities surrounding him and first lady Mary Easley. Separately, the State Board of Elections ordered Easley's campaign committee in October to pay $100,000 for failing to report dozens of airplane flights piloted by former political ally McQueen Campbell.

The report followed two patrol reviews about the records that determined Melvin had not intended to destroy or remove the records.

Perdue created the panel after administrative assistant Diane Bumgardner said Melvin had told her to put flight records on a disk to save computer space.

Investigators couldn't recover the records after their removal from the hard drive.

"I find it unacceptable that the records were not properly archived," Perdue said in a release. Last year she ordered new safeguards for retaining patrol records.

Melvin, on administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigation, will return to full duty today in the patrol's research and planning unit, patrol spokesman Capt. Everett Clendenin said.

According to the report, Easley talked to the attorneys Dec. 16 and said he didn't even know that the patrol had kept such information.

He suggested it may have been lost while his family moved out of the Executive Mansion, where troopers also worked, for renovations in 2005.

"It was his view that if anything is amiss, it was simply a mistake on someone's part," the report said.

Melvin told attorneys he didn't remember telling Bumgardner to put records on a disk.

He said the records from 2005 could have been destroyed in 2007 in keeping with a records retention schedule.