Mark Robinson, the former Republican lieutenant governor of North Carolina, has filed for bankruptcy after his 2024 campaign for governor collapsed when controversial posts from an adult website’s message board resurfaced. Robinson and his wife reported having less than $800 in liquid assets.
Robinson, 58, and his wife, Yolanda Hill, filed for protection under Chapter 13 of the federal bankruptcy code earlier this month. The process allows people with regular income to repay their debts over several years while retaining ownership of their property.
According to a Nov. 3 filing obtained by WRAL-TV, the couple listed $766.98 in liquid assets and nearly $800,000 in liabilities. Their debts include roughly $120,000 in credit card balances, $94,000 in other obligations and approximately $100,000 tied to collection accounts.
Robinson served four years as lieutenant governor under Democrat Roy Cooper, who was elected to the US Senate last week in the “blue tsunami” that handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.
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In 2024, Robinson secured the Republican nomination for governor but suffered a landslide defeat to then-state Attorney General John Stein. His campaign unraveled after CNN reported on offensive comments he had posted between 2008 and 2012 on the message board of the adult website Nude Africa.
“I’m a Black Nazi!” Robinson wrote in October 2010. In another post that same month, he wrote, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”
In other entries, Robinson used an offensive slur to describe Muslims, recounted “peeping” on women showering at a public gym for about an hour when he was 14, and said he enjoyed pornography featuring transgender performers because it “takes the man out while leaving the man in!”
Before entering politics, Robinson worked at a furniture factory and an aviation company. He has previously acknowledged financial difficulties, filing for bankruptcy in 1998 and 1999. Robinson and Hill also sought Chapter 13 protection in 2003, when court proceedings revealed that Robinson had not filed income tax returns for the years 1998 through 2002.