PENDER COUNTY — A county commissioner’s stalking reports made against a local media publisher have been dismissed by local and state authorities.
Pender County’s Commissioner Jerry Groves filed two reports of stalking on Andy Pettigrew, the owner of the Pender Post — one in July and the other in February. Both have been closed due to insubstantial evidence.
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Groves, who has served as Pender County commissioner since 2022 but is not running for re-election, has had a tumultuous relationship with Pender-Topsail Post and Voice in recent years, due to its publication of political cartoons featuring the commissioner and a related lawsuit.
One of the most recent issues reportedly took place in June when Groves filed a stalking and bullying case against the paper’s owner, Andy Pettigrew, after the two saw one another at the Old River Farms car show in Burgaw. Both Pettigrew and Groves had cars entered into the event. Pettigrew told Port City Daily he and his wife were dining by the food trucks, located near Groves’ vehicle.
“He had parked himself three or four tables away from the food truck. We walked up to the food truck, ordered food, and went and sat down and ate,” Pettigrew explained. “Nowhere close to him, no interaction with him at all.”
Groves didn’t respond to Port City Daily by press to detail his side of the story.
The commissioner filed a complaint on July 23, 2025 claiming the publisher was stalking him and included a bully/harassment claim. The report was filed at the Pender County Sheriff’s Office and referred to the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, according to the case file. In addition to being a commissioner, Groves is a deputy sheriff at the Pender County Sheriff’s Office; PCD attempted to confirm Groves’ employment was the reason for the case’s transfer to a different office, but it went unanswered by press.
However, the case was dismissed, according to PCSO documentation and confirmed by NHCSO spokesperson Lt. Jerry Brewer.
“The detectives looked into it and they did not find any criminal activity,” Brewer said.
Pettigrew added the dismissal was due to lack of evidence.
“They took one look at it and it went in the round file,” he explained, referring to the trash can.
Fast-forward eight months, Groves submitted a second report to the Pender County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 19 for an alleged stalking incident at the Rocky Point Food Lion. Pettigrew told PCD he did not recall seeing or interacting with Groves. The report does not include a rundown of the event.
According to Pettigrew, Groves did not want the sheriff’s office to seek out the grocery store’s surveillance footage. Port City Daily reached out to PCSO and Sheriff Alan Cutler multiple times but did not receive a response by press.
The PCSO report indicates the case was referred to an external agency — in this instance, the State Bureau of Investigations.
Chad Flowers, public information officer for the SBI, told Port City Daily the agency had not received an official request by the Pender County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the matter. But Flowers added it was nipped in the bud during discussions among the district attorney’s office, sheriff’s office, and SBI.
“The district attorney felt there was no reason to investigate and no reason to proceed,” Flowers said.
DA Jason Smith — who represents both counties — was unable to comment on the matter.
Groves’ ire against Pender-Topsail Post and Voice dates back to the beginning of his tenure in the commissioner’s seat, in 2022. Groves has accused Pettigrew of “making faces” at him during meetings and last March called the publisher out from the dais: “Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, I’m not going to sit here and watch him laugh at me — Andy Pettigrew.”
Pettigrew said Groves has been “waging war” on him and the publication for years.
It came to a head last year, when Groves, Pender County commissioner Chair Randy Burton and Vice Chair Brent Springer voted in favor of ending the county’s advertising contract with the publication, after cartoons printed in the editorial section upset some board members. The board made the switch to the StarNews and said it was due to wanting a wider audience reach, while remaining cost effective, though many local residents believed the move was made in retaliation.
The cartoons depicted Groves, Burton and Springer as puppets, with former school board member Phil Cordeiro as the puppet master, signifying a lack of transparency perceived by the Pender Post and Cordeiro’s influence on the commission.
The decision led to Pettigrew filing a lawsuit against the county and the three commissioners. The Pender Post owners claimed ending the advertisement deal with the county was retaliatory and hurt the Post’s bottom line by about $80,000.
In January, Pettigrew and his legal team dropped the three individual commissioners from the suit. Pettigrew credited it to immunity defenses made by the commissioners’ legal team and rising costs for pursuing individual claims against the politicians. The suit against the county is still active.
“I sold everything I had to pay my attorneys here,” he said. “The county just takes tax money and blows it. They’ve got all our tax money. They can spend it on attorneys all they want.”
The lawsuit hasn’t stopped the publisher from running the editorial cartoons, however, Another was printed in the Post’s Sept. 4 edition, about two months after the suit was initiated and six months after the puppet cartoon. Groves, Burton, and Springer are shown seated by a bonfire, with taxpayer dollars lit on fire, next to a gravesite and the words “Pender EMS & Fire” scribed on crosses and a tombstone. Groves said at last year’s Sept.15 commissioner meeting he felt threatened by the imagery of the gravesite.
“I am afraid for my life at this time,” he said at the meeting. “That graveyard could have been meant for me.”
Groves later requested for an escort out of the building to his vehicle.
Pettigrew called the new set of stalking and bullying disputes a misuse of authority, citing Groves’ connection to the PCSO, on top of his place as commissioner.
“What you have here is a false police report committed by a sitting county commissioner and a sheriff’s deputy in what I would call an abuse of power,” he said.
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