{"id":52230,"date":"2024-12-03T09:21:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T14:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=52230"},"modified":"2024-12-03T09:21:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T14:21:57","slug":"lee-co-leaders-call-for-change-after-fraud-allegations-against-lee-county-sheriffs-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/12\/03\/lee-co-leaders-call-for-change-after-fraud-allegations-against-lee-county-sheriffs-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Co. leaders call for change after fraud allegations against Lee County Sheriff’s office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some Lee County leaders call for changes to how the county operates after allegations of fraud within the Sheriff\u2019s Office surfaced during Sheriff Carmine Marceno\u2019s re-election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE: Friends of Carmine Marceno PC on 08\/11\/2023 $10,000.00 FRIENDS OF GRADY JUDD 1103 HAYS ST TALLAHASSEE, FL 32301<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Will Sheriff GRADY JUDD give the money back since Sheriff Carmine Marceno is under investigation by the FBI?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman says it\u2019s time to provide more transparency with the Sheriff\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee County leaders call for changes after allegations surface against Sheriff’s office<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFor years, the Sheriff\u2019s budget increases have consumed most of the new revenue from our growing tax base, leaving other departments flat or even facing cuts. I propose creating a dedicated law enforcement (Municipal Service Taxing Unit), giving the Sheriff\u2019s Office its line on your tax bill,\u201d Hamman wrote on his official Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamman says the change would give \u201ctaxpayers a clear view of how much they contribute to law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At $315 million, the budget for the Sheriff\u2019s Office dwarfs all other county agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Lee County Clerk Kevin Karnes raised concerns about the allegations against Marceno and the potential financial risks it could pose to the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s calling on an external auditor to take a closer look at the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s why I separate the FBI investigation from the external audit. As a government auditor we don’t have access to people’s personal records. So, we would never get to this ‘ah ha’ conclusion about allegations that existed into the public sphere,\u201d Karnes said. \u201cBut it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look into the allegations and make sure that we’re dotting i’s and crossing t’s and keeping the best interests of the taxpayers in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FBI will not confirm if there is an active investigation into the Sheriff\u2019s office or the County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marceno has argued the allegations against him were politically motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson with the Sheriff\u2019s office says their finances are all accounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As has been the case every year, all funds have been accounted for and all audits have determined the agency’s protocols more than sufficient.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Lee County leaders call for changes to how the county operates after allegations of fraud within the Sheriff\u2019s Office surfaced during Sheriff Carmine Marceno\u2019s re-election campaign. UPDATE: Friends of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMTJcL2ltYWdlcy53ZWJwP2ZpdD0zMDAlMkMxNjgmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJMZWUgQ28uIGxlYWRlcnMgY2FsbCBmb3IgY2hhbmdlIGFmdGVyIGZyYXVkIGFsbGVnYXRpb25zIGFnYWluc3QgTGVlIENvdW50eSBTaGVyaWZmJiM4MjE3O3Mgb2ZmaWNlIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.tClG8lBCttK2KPCwYF_CvDDnYAcGMiDumSh_KlRvzusMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":52231,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/images.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[10445],"class_list":["post-52230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-lee-co-leaders-call-for-change-after-fraud-allegations-against-lee-county-sheriffs-office"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52232,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230\/revisions\/52232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}