Lakesha Womack’s campaign hit an ugly patch after she said she was served with felony summons papers while attending a political event in North Carolina. The case centers on a rental car dispute from years ago, and the timing has thrown fresh heat into her challenge against Rep. Tim Moore in the state’s 14th District.
Womack said in a video that police confronted her at a campaign stop in Polk County on Oct. 11 over charges tied to a 2019 rental car she did not return. She said she only learned about the case a few days earlier, even though court records show the matter was opened in January 2020.
That claim is now at the center of a very public fight over accountability and explanation. Moore’s camp wasted no time calling the situation serious and argued that voters deserve a clear answer, especially with the court date landing just one week after Election Day.
The sheriff’s office confirmed that a criminal summons was served that day for felony failure to return a hired motor vehicle, though it did not confirm the exact setting was a campaign event. That detail matters because the optics are brutal either way, and political campaigns live and die on timing, perception, and trust.
Womack has tried to put the charges in context by describing a rough stretch in her life. She said she was homeless in 2019, had a medical emergency that landed her in the ICU, and had to deal with her son being placed in foster care while she struggled to get back on her feet.
In that version of events, the rental car became part of a larger financial collapse. Womack said she could not keep up with the cost, the car was taken back, and she did not realize a pending felony case had been filed against her at the time.
She also described living in a hotel, scraping together money for food, and trying to keep her family stable with very little support. Her account paints a picture of a messy personal crisis, but it does not erase the legal problem hanging over the campaign trail.
Moore’s campaign responded with a sharp line, saying the situation raises serious questions about whether she can manage public responsibilities if she could not manage her own affairs. The message was blunt, and it landed exactly where political damage usually does, right in the gap between sympathy and doubt.
The congressman’s team also pointed to the basic standard voters expect from anyone asking for office. Their point was simple: if someone wants to represent a community, that person has to answer hard questions without hiding behind spin or delay.
Womack did acknowledge in a separate video that she owed money, saying, “but I just want you all to know that, you know, I do owe them people some money.” She added that she believed the issue had been resolved before finding out it was still active, which only deepens the confusion around how the case moved through the system.
Another layer of the story is her claim that she could not be properly notified because she was homeless and did not have a stable address. That part of the story may help explain why she says the summons went unnoticed for so long, but it also raises the awkward question of how a seven-year-old case suddenly surfaced with election season in full swing.
Womack said later that she could not speak about an active case, and a previous video discussing the matter appears to have disappeared from her campaign page. When political candidates start deleting videos and limiting comments, the silence can say almost as much as the words already out there.
The legal stakes are not minor. If convicted, she could face a sentence ranging from four to 24 months in jail or community service for that period, which is exactly the kind of headline no campaign wants days before voters head to the polls.
The district itself stretches across western North Carolina, running from Charlotte’s suburbs into the foothills. It is the kind of place where local issues, character, and personal credibility can carry serious weight, which is why this case is likely to keep hanging over the race as long as it stays unresolved.
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