RALEIGH, N.C. -- The two top candidates for governor tried Monday to paint each other with political corruption, with Pat McCrory questioning Beverly Perdue's ties to a Board of Transportation member and Perdue linking McCrory to disgraced ex-House Speaker Jim Black.

McCrory's campaign called on Perdue, a Democrat, to return what his campaign identified as $37,500 in donations given by Board of Transportation member Louis Sewell and family members. That came after a weekend newspaper report questioning Sewell's voting on projects near land he and a son owned.

Perdue's campaign later Monday released a portion of an August 1999 public access television show featuring McCrory, the Republican mayor of Charlotte, as the host and calling the guest, Democrat and then first-term speaker Black, his "personal friend" and optometrist.

"You've been a wonderful teammate," McCrory is seen telling Black on video, referring to working together on local issues -- since Black is from the Charlotte suburb of Matthews.

The interview took place years before allegations came out against Black, a Democrat who is serving a five-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2007 to taking illegal cash payments from chiropractors.

Perdue's campaign also said that Stan Campbell, a former consultant for McCrory's primary campaign and a spokesman, helped operate a legal defense fund on Black's behalf.

McCrory talks about ridding "the 'culture of corruption' in Raleigh, yet he hires its biggest defender as a top consultant and spokesperson for his campaign," Perdue spokesman David Kochman said in a news release.

An angry McCrory said late Monday that Perdue's campaign was grasping at straws. Black was just one member of the Charlotte-area's delegation to the General Assembly. There's been no hint of corruption in Charlotte city government, which McCrory has led for 13 years, he said.

"It's typical arrogance of state government and of Beverly Perdue to transfer state corruption to officials who had nothing to do with it," the mayor said in a phone interview. "It's an act of true desperation."

Perdue's decision to inject Black, now serving a federal prison term for taking thousands of dollars from chiropractors, into the campaign is seen by some as risky.

The lieutenant governor and Black served together in the Legislature going back to the 1980s, with Perdue one of the Senate's chief budget-writers for two years and lieutenant governor for six more while Black was speaker.

"She served with him. She never spoke up about anything that was going on that was wrong," said Jack Hawke, McCrory's chief political strategist, calling her attempts to link the mayor to Black "audacious."

Campbell, a Republican and former Charlotte city council member, administered Black's legal fund because he's been a bankruptcy trustee, Hawke said. McCrory's campaign paid Campbell $3,500 a month through the end of the May as a consultant, according to campaign finance report data.

McCrory's campaign focused on Sewell, a campaign fundraiser for Perdue and outgoing Gov. Mike Easley. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Sunday that Sewell steered roughly $375,000 in public money to road improvements in Jacksonville near properties that he or a son co-owned at the time.

Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett has asked the State Ethics Commission to investigate the transactions.

Minutes of board meetings don't show Sewell mentioning his financial interests near the improvement areas. Twice, he voted for some of the funding for the road improvements.

During Perdue's Democratic primary campaign, another board member resigned last month after he attempted to raise money for Perdue from people connected to a high-profile entertainment development in Roanoke Rapids.

Perdue "has a long history of fundraising impropriety," McCrory Campaign Manager Richard Hudson said in a news release, adding that "she has an ethical cloud hanging over her head."

Sewell told The News & Observer that all the road projects he has recommended or voted to approve have been in the public interest.

Perdue's campaign didn't respond directly to McCrory's call to return money connected to Sewell, with spokesman Tim Crowley saying "we're not going to take our advice from Pat McCrory, who hired" Campbell.