Democratic congressional candidate LaKesha Womack was served with a criminal summons at a campaign rally over a felony charge involving an allegedly unreturned rental car. The case dates back to 2019 and reached her during the closing weeks of her bid for Congress. Womack has acknowledged missing the vehicle’s return deadline and retained an attorney as she prepares for a November court appearance.
Womack is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Moore in North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District. She told The Charlotte Observer that authorities served her October 11th while she attended a rally in Polk County, two days after she said she learned of the charge. Moore, a former North Carolina House speaker, won his first congressional term in 2024. Voters will decide their race November 3rd.
The allegation concerns a 2019 Toyota Corolla rented from Budget Car Rental and valued in the summons at $20,000. Court records obtained by Carolina Journal’s Annie Dance show that the original criminal summons was issued January 14th, 2020, and returned unserved February 13th of that year. The summons was subsequently reissued and marked served October 11th, 2026. The felony charge remains pending.
According to a November 26th, 2019, police incident report obtained by Dance, the rental began October 7th at 11:31 a.m., with the vehicle due back October 23rd at noon. The officer recorded that the vehicle hadn’t been returned and attempts to locate the suspect had failed. An alert was sent to dispatchers, and public records indicate that the case was later assigned to a detective.
North Carolina’s law governing failure to return hired property covers willfully retaining rented property beyond the agreed rental period. The statute generally classifies that conduct as a Class 3 misdemeanor. For an unreturned motor vehicle worth more than $4,000 at the time of rental, however, it provides for a Class H felony. That dollar threshold concerns the vehicle’s value when rented, rather than the amount of any outstanding rental bill.
Womack discussed the case in an October 9th campaign video that she described as a family meeting. She said she’d moved to North Carolina to work on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and later experienced homelessness with her son. She attributed her lack of notice to having no stable mailing address. “And so at one point I had a rental car,” she said. “And I did not return the rental car on time.”
Watch Womack discuss the rental car case with the local NAACP chapter here:
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During her October 9th campaign video, Womack said she believed she’d resolved the matter and acknowledged owing money. She promised to visit the courthouse to determine what steps she needed to take. She also discussed having Type 1 diabetes and struggling to afford necessities, connecting those experiences to her campaign priorities. Womack invited voters to bring questions to her town halls while criticizing people who challenged her online without attending those events.
In an email to The Charlotte Observer, Womack declined to discuss whether the car was eventually returned or recovered, citing her attorney’s involvement. She questioned when the case had been brought to her attention. “It feels like a terrible coincidence that my court date is scheduled the week after the election,” she said. Her appearance is scheduled for 9 a.m. November 10th in Mecklenburg County District Court.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.