Sam Currin

Samuel Thomas Currin Sr. is an American Baptist minister, retired judge, and former lawyer. He served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina from 1981 to 1987 and as a North Carolina Superior Court Judge from 1987 to 1990. He also served as the Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and as Judge Advocate in Chief for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Currin was imprisoned in 2007 for money laundering and obstruction of justice. He was released in 2009 after providing a testimony against one of his co-conspirators.

Education Currin graduated with honors from Wake Forest University, earned a juris doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and earned a master's degree in Ethics, Theology and Culture and a doctorate in Christian Education from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Career Law and politics Currin began his career working as a federal prosecutor in Raleigh, North Carolina before being hired as a legislative worker by Senator Jesse Helms. He was a member of the Electoral College of the United States, representing North Carolina during the 2000 United States presidential election, where he voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Following his term on the court, Currin worked in private practice. According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, he fought against anti-racism efforts within the organization. He admitted to lying and failing to surrender documents to a grand jury, failing to report $6,000 in income to the Internal Revenue Service, and to laundering around $1.4 million in a securities fraud scheme run by a spam email company. According to prosecutors, Currin profited over $240,000 for his involvement in the scheme, which used spam emails, unsolicited faxes, internet search optimization, and voice mail broadcasting to manipulate the stock prices of multiple publicly traded companies. After Currin testified against one of his co-conspirators, federal prosecutors recommended a reduced sentence. In 2009, a judge issued a release order for Currin. He served on the board of directors of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina until his resignation in April 2006. Currin also wrote for North State Journal, criticizing the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden and praising the efforts of President Donald Trump. He also criticized the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign for supporting abortion rights. In 2025, he condemned the assassination of Charlie Kirk and referred to Kirk as a "Christian martyr".

Currin donated to the NC Heritage PAC, a conservative political action committee, in 2016.

In 2023, he claimed that the United States had an "aggressive secular culture" that was "attempting to force ideological conformity on people of faith" and accused LGBTQ activists and "leftist politicians" of seeking political revenge against the Supreme Court for its rulings in Groff v. DeJoy and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. Their son, S. Thomas Currin II, is a superior court judge.

He is a member of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh.