Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary

<div></div><div>nyt 12/2000</div><div>
</div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 19px; line-height: 1.083em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">THE 43rd PRESIDENT: FLORIDA; Republican Group Seeks To Unseat Three Justices</h1><div class="byline" style="line-height: 1.2em; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By DEXTER FILKINS</div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 17px; line-height: 15px;">MIAMI, Dec. 19— In one of the first signs of political fallout from the bitter struggle over the contested presidential vote here, a Republican-led group is seeking to unseat three Florida Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of hand recounts sought by Vice President Al Gore.The group, the Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project, has sent letters to some 350,000 voters inside and outside of Florida asking for donations to help oust Chief Justice Charles T. Wells and Justices Leander J. Shaw Jr. and Harry Lee Anstead.The three justices formed part of the unanimous, 7-to-0 ruling last month that overturned a lower court and ordered Katherine Harris, the secretary of state, to accept updated totals from three counties that were manually recounting disputed presidential ballots.All three justices were appointed by Democratic governors to six-year terms. Justices Anstead and Wells are scheduled to face Florida voters in 2002 in a yes-or-no judicial retention election. Justice Shaw is scheduled to retire in 2003, when he will be 70.Several Florida Supreme Court justices have been earmarked for removal since judicial retention came into force in 1976, but none have been ousted that way so far.The letter, mailed out Friday, is signed by Mary McCarty, a Republican county commissioner in Palm Beach County. In the letter, Ms. McCarty, a 10-year incumbent commissioner, calls the Florida Supreme Court's behavior in the presidential election ''an outrageous, arrogant power-grab by a left-wing court which is stuck in the liberal 60's.''In the letter, Ms. McCarty asks recipients to send as much as $1,000 to help pay for ''grass-roots organizations, telephones, postage, television and radio advertising.'' The letter said another group, the Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary, had been formed to help oust the justices.Two of the justices singled out by the committee dissented from the Florida Supreme Court's 4-to-3 ruling earlier this month ordering a statewide hand count of the estimated 45,000 ballots that had not been tabulated by the vote counting machines. Chief Justice Wells and Justice Shaw disagreed with the court majority, which Justice Anstead joined.The letter by the Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project follows an announcement last week by another group that wants to unseat Justice Anstead. That group, Balance to the Bench, wants to raise about $1 million to target Justice Anstead in 2002.The recall efforts seem likely to touch off a nasty political battle over the proper role of the judiciary and the legacy of the disputed 2000 presidential election.A prominent Tallahassee lawyer said he was forming a committee to help the judges beat back the recall effort. Steven J. Uhlfelder, a Democrat who campaigned for George W. Bush, said the effort to unseat the justices marked an unnecessary intrusion of politics into the judiciary.Under the judicial retention system, Florida Supreme Court justices are sharply limited in how they wage their campaigns and what they may say in public.Democratic officials criticized the recall effort, saying it threatened to politicize a branch of government that was intended to stand above partisan politics.''This violates the whole principle of separation of powers,'' said Representative Lois Frankel, the minority leader in the Florida House.''When you drag the courts into the political arena, you are ensuring that they will be political,'' Ms. Frankel said.</div></div><div></div><div><div>The County Commission waived routine bid procedures to give the lobbying contract to Ikon. In 1996, Roger Stone helped Florida "Sugar Growers" defeat a Floridawide ballot initiative that would have imposed a penny-a-pound tax on sugar to restore the Everglades. Recently, Roger Stone, 50, incorporated a Miami Beach company called Fairbanks LLC with his wife, Nydia.</div><div>
</div><div>Roger Stone previously has gotten into trouble for activities that bear some resemblance to the "Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary" events. In 2000, the New York State Temporary Lobbying Commission fined Donald Trump’s Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., the Institute for Law and Society and Roger Stone, their lobbyist, $250,000 as part of a settlement that ended an investigation into unreported lobbying expenses.</div><div>The lobbying campaign sought to scuttle legislation permitting the Mohawk Indians to build a casino that would have competed against Trump’s Atlantic City casinos.</div><div>
</div><div>A lobbying commission investigation found that the direct mail campaign sponsored by the purportedly public-minded Institute for Law and Society was actually orchestrated by Donald Trump and Roger Stone, with the true source of funding hidden from the state’s voters. As part of the settlement, Roger Stone and Donald Trump publicly apologized for misleading the public “concerning the production and funding of the lobbying effort.”</div><div>
</div><div>Fort Lauderdale attorney Mitchell Berger, a major fund-raiser for the Gore-Lieberman campaign who was part of Al Gore’s re-count legal team, said the activities of the "Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary" should be investigated further.</div><div>
</div><div>“There were a lot of things that happened at the time that went un-reported and that for the sake of history and for the sake of understanding how our government worked need to be looked at,” said Mitchell Berger, Chairman of Berger Singerman.</div><div>
</div><div>“To threaten members of the Judiciary with 'removal' at the time cases are pending is NOT the way our founding persons intended our democracy to function.”</div><div>Reporter Dan Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@floridabiz.com or at (954) 468-2616</div><div></div></div><div>=</div><div>Our state Supreme Court and now, the lower judiciary are under siege by Rick Scott and his giddy band of thieves. Christine Jordan Sexton at the Florida Tribune<a href="http://fltrib.com/governor-would-gain-more-control-over-judiciary-under-new-house-proposal" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">reports</a>: March 15, 2011 <div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); padding: 10px; margin-left: 15px; margin-right: 310px; background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">A proposed committee bill that would remove the Florida Bar from the judicial appointment process and allow Gov. Rick Scott complete control over the panels that select judges was released by the Florida House on Tuesday night.

The measure makes changes to the Judicial Nominating Commissions which recommend a list of finalists to the governor for judicial appointments. The commissions play a big role since many judges first get on the bench by appointment, instead of running for office.

The measure, CVJ8, would terminate the terms of all members of the nominating panels and the boards would be reduced from nine members to seven. The legislation would be the most far-reaching bill to affect judicial appointments since the GOP-controlled Legislature gave then-Gov. Jeb Bush additional control back in 2001.

.....

This is just one of a handful of House measures that would make substantial changes to the judiciary. Others would break the state Supreme Court in two, transfer control of rule-making from the courts to the Florida Legislature and increase the threshold that judges need in order to win a merit retention vote.

.....</div> Here is more on the right wingers' onslaught in the Legislature to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4776031" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">break up</a> the Florida Supreme Court. Reminds me of former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty. In December, 2000, she hated the Florida Supreme Court too. Below is just <a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/local_news/epaper/2009/01/08/0108mccartychrono.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a taste</a> of what former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty did. Now she is in prison. <div class="excerpt" style="border: 1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); padding: 10px; margin-left: 15px; margin-right: 310px;">.....

July 1997: Is hopeful that Jeb Bush will choose her to be his running mate in the governor's race. She also tells people that she's interested in running for secretary of state. McCarty later says that she took a serious look at the secretary job but decided to stay on the commission.

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December 1999: With her husband, Kevin, is named a chair of George W. Bush's presidential campaign in Florida.

November 2000: Allows two dozen Republican operatives turn her commission office into a makeshift war room and watch the 2000 manual recount on closed-circuit television.

December 2000: Is elected chairwoman of the county's Republican Party.

December 2000: Initiates a statewide movement to rid Florida of its "left wing" Supreme Court Justices. She later chairs "The Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary," a group seeking to recall three Florida Supreme Court justices who sided with Al Gore in the recount.

August 2002: Is hit with a state ruling that says the Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary had filed an "incorrect, false, or incomplete" campaign report and accepted contributions above Florida's $500 limit. The Florida Election Commission later fines her $2,000.</div> Now she <a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/behind-the-razor-wire-with-contrite-mary-mccarty-1203017.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">sits in prison</a>, guilty of a federal felony count of honest services fraud. Oh, and <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x710324" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">this is her husband</a>.</div><div>husband:</div><div>
</div><div>t was McCarty’s diverse experience, and successful implementation of key programs that prompted Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Cabinet to appoint McCarty as the first appointed insurance commissioner in January, 2003. Gov. Jeb Bush described McCarty as “a highly qualified regulatory executive,” who would “provide continuity” to the newly formed Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR).

<a href="http://www.floir.com/director/Commissioner.htm" target="blank">http://www.floir.com/director/Commissioner.htm</a>
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</div><div>=</div><div>stone hell</div><div>
</div><div>In the movie Recount, the other supposed co-ordinator of the Brooks Brothers Riot is mentioned once, when James Baker says with a sinister undertone “Get me Roger Stone.” This quote is carried about like a totem by Stone, a blurb of endorsement at the beginning of his memoir. Stone never appears in the movie, though both Blakeman (played by Christopher Schmidt) and Sweeney (played by Tom Hillmann) do. Stone has been up front in his enjoyment of fame, often quoting Gore Vidal, “Never turn down an opportunity for sex or being on TV.” Stone most often appears on marginal stations, local networks, webcasts you’ve never heard of – “The Daily National”, Miami’s “The Fish Tank”, RT.com, Reason TV – while Blakeman is a mainstay of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News<a name="bkfrftnote94" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote94" sl-processed="1">94</a>. This is not to suggest Stone got nothing out of the debacle in Florida, or that he did nothing there, but his major project may have involved something other than the Brooks Brothers riot, an incident given little or no attention by the press, and entirely omitted from the Labash and Toobin profiles. I will write now of what he was involved in, and delay till the next section the interesting prize he may have got in return.“Gore made the tragic mistake of only selecting recounts in certain counties,” writes Stone in his memoir. “where he thought he might gain votes instead of all counties.”<a name="bkfrftnote95" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote95" sl-processed="1">95</a> Like I said, this chapter is obviously unfinished, with the end coming abruptly in the next sentence, like a diary entry from a sinking ship: “In fact, Gore would have gained from a statewide recount as African American enclaves in Northern and Central Florida had” It’s an interesting criticism for Stone to make given his work in Florida after the election, work which was witnessed and which carried his name, and rather than attempt an association, Stone tried for a disassociation.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/20/us/the-43rd-president-florida-republican-group-seeks-to-unseat-three-justices.html" sl-processed="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">“Republican Group Seeks To Unseat Three Justices”</a> by the excellent Dexter Filkins conveys well what took place. The Florida Supreme Court had ruled against the Bush campaign twice, a 7-0 ruling to allow for a recount of the four counties, and later, a 4-3 ruling for a recount of all undervotes in the state. It was this decision that the federal supreme court would overrule, halting the vote count, and handing the election to Bush. The Filkins piece would note an event now entirely forgotten, the appearance of the Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project, which sent out over three hundred thousand letters soliciting funds in an effort to unseat those Florida Supreme Court justices who’d been appointed by Democrats – Chief Justice Charles T. Wells, Leander J. Shaw Jr., Harry Lee Anstead – who had voted in unanimity in the first 7-0 decision on the four county recount. The committee had been set up prior to the vote, perhaps as a warning to the justices of the consequences of voting against the Bush campaign. It was headed up by Republican County Commissioner Mary McCarty. Though the Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project will be the focus here, it should be noted that it was also joined by a second group, Balance the Bench, whose objective was to unseat Harry Anstead, who’d voted with three other justices for a recount of all undervotes. Balance the Bench was founded by Susan Johnson and a Tampa businessman named Sam Rashid<a name="bkfrftnote96" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote96" sl-processed="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">96</a>. Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project was chaired, as said, by Mary McCarty, who ended up being fined by the Florida Election Committee for violating election laws with the political action group. McCarty, however, would insist they had got it wrong. “I didn’t do any of this except sign my name,” insisted McCarty. “This was basically some sort of a scam that was set up that I was used in. I was duped. My name was used, so I have to take the brunt of it.” McCarty insisted that she’d been played, played by someone named-<a name="bkfrftnote97" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote97" sl-processed="1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">97</a> Well, reader, who do you think it was?From <a href="http://voiceoffreedom.org/archives/electionstuff/electionlaw.html" sl-processed="1">“Election Law: Supreme Plot”</a> (archived) by Dan Christianson, from Daily Business Review, July 10, 2003:<blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);">During Mary McCarty’s 2-day hearing, the FEC’s lawyer argued that Roger Stone and Mary McCarty established the “Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary” to pressure the Florida State Supreme Court to rule in favor of then Texas Gov. George W. Bush in his ballot re-count battle with Al Gore. Mary McCarty testified that the Committee began to take shape 6 to 9 days after the Nov. 7th election. The Florida Supreme Court was first asked by Al Gore to order hand re-counts in the decisive Florida race on Nov. 15th.“This was an attempt to let the Justices know, who were going to eventually decide the presidential election, that they were going to be watched,” Commission Assistant counsel Eric M. Lipman said in his opening arguments. “And it was an attempt to influence what they were going to do.”According to Judge Hooper’s 36-page order, Roger Stone, through his Washington, D.C.-based firm, “Ikon Public Affairs”, was the real agent behind the campaign in late 2000 and 2001 to defeat the Florida Justices in the 2002 merit retention election. But who, if anyone, was paying Roger Stone and giving him orders remains unclear.</blockquote><blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Mary McCarty’s lawbreaking, including findings that she certified the accuracy of a Campaign Treasurer’s report that was “incorrect, false, or incomplete,” accepted excessive contributions and displayed a “reckless disregard” for Florida State Election laws, stemmed from her Chairmanship of the now-defunct “Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary”.The PAC, which began operating in late November 2000′, but wasn’t legally established until early January 2001, targeted Justices: Harry Lee Anstead, Charles T. Wells, and Justice Leander J. Shaw for defeat in the 2002 merit retention elections. Mary McCarty’s highly publicized “Mad as Hell” letter, mailed to as many as 350,000 conservatives in early December 2000′, sought to raise $4.5 million to unseat them.Florida Election records show that hundreds of people responded to the solicitation letter, which raised a total of about $220,000. That sum included a mysterious $150,000 loan whose origin still hasn’t been determined.</blockquote>As far as I can tell, the origin of the $150,000 loan has never been discovered. McCarty would, however, be able to give other details:<blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);">At her hearing, Mary McCarty testified she was drafted into the presidential re-count battle on the morning after the Nov. 7th Election meltdown in Florida. Top Republicans recruited her to oversee the ballot re-count in Palm Beach County, home of the notorious “butterfly ballot” that confused many voters.“Members of the Bush-Cheney campaign ‘took up residence in my office’,” she said.The re-count controversy landed before the Florida Supreme Court the week after the election when Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the Florida co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign, refused to grant the request of the Gore-Lieberman campaign for a re-count. On Nov. 21, the Florida State Supreme Court unanimously decided to give Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties more time to finish hand re-counts sought by Al Gore.Mary McCarty testified that between Nov. 13 and Nov. 16, Roger Stone called her at her home. “He explained to me that people were very, very upset with the way the Florida Supreme Court was conducting itself, and that in Florida we have a merit retention system.”A few weeks later, on Dec. 8th, the Florida Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, ordered the then-stalled re-count to resume and be extended Floridawide. Four days after that, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote in Bush v. Al Gore, effectively shut down the re-count, prompting Al Gore to concede the election to Bush.Mary McCarty testified she previously had met Roger Stone at a campaign fund-raiser for Sen. Arlen Specter, Republican-Pa., and that they had worked together briefly when she considered running for Congress in the late 1990s. So, when Roger Stone told her he was forming a Committee “for the purposes of taking action against the Florida Supreme Court”, which is what Judge Hooper subsequently found, she decided to go along.Dianne Thorne of Miami Beach, who became the Committee’s Treasurer, testified in a deposition that Roger Stone asked for her help in setting up the Committee’s clerical operation. Dianne Thorne said Roger Stone had contacted her because she used to date his son. The Committee listed as its business address a P.O. Box at a USA Pack & Post on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach.On Thanksgiving Day 2000, according to Mary McCarty’s testimony, Roger Stone faxed her the text of a fund-raising letter to which she’d agreed to lend her name. Later, Mary McCarty said, Roger Stone and his “Associates” arranged to file all the necessary paperwork to create the “Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary”. The FEC investigators found that the papers sent to the Florida Department of Elections to establish the Committee were sent from the Washington office of Ikon Public Affairs, according to documents in the FEC’s case file.Mary McCarty testified that the original version of the fund-raising letter she was asked to review did not target specific 3 Florida Supreme Court justices. But, the final version that went out the first week of December did. She said she didn’t approve it, but acknowledged she didn’t object either. “I just decided that I would be held accountable for something that I agreed to get into,” she said. “And wherever it took me, I would just be the one to take the lumps.”</blockquote><blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Mary McCarty’s “Dear Friend” letter was shrill. “Were you as outraged by the Florida Supreme Court’s efforts to highjack [sic] the presidency for Al Gore as I was?” the letter asked. “It was an outrageous, arrogant power-grab by a left-wing court which is stuck in the liberal 60s…We must raise at least $4.5 million by the ‘Vote No’ campaign to organize Florida voters to reject the retention of these three liberal Supreme Court justices.”</blockquote>Everything, everything, related to the $150,000 loan was mysterious, and, as far as I can tell, remain unanswered mysteries to this day:<blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The direct mail fund-raising campaign cost $150,000. According to Judge Hooper, Roger Stone came up with the money that Committee campaign records later listed as a “loan” from an Alexandria, Va.-based firm called Creative Marketing. The mailing address reported by the Committee for Creative Marketing was the same as that of the Stone Group, a fund-raising and marketing firm owned by Roger Stone’s ex-wife, conservative Republican activist Ann Stone. Investigators could find no company by the name of Creative Marketing.Mary McCarty said Roger Stone told her he and his partner, Craig Snyder, would be personally responsible for repaying the $150,000 that funded the “Dear Friend” mass mailing.There were also questions about who the money went to. Judge Hooper found that Roger Stone “or his Organization” actually paid the $150,000 not to Creative Marketing but to a Virginia company called Unique Graphics and Design, which, according to Virginia State corporate records, had as its principals Ann Stone and Lora Lynn Jones. The Committee subsequently paid Unique Graphics an additional $50,000 in May 2001 for purposes that remain unclear.Last November, Lora Lynn Jones testified in a deposition that it was Roger Stone who hired Unique Graphics for the Florida work, gave her “marching orders,” and was responsible for paying the tab for the fund-raising letter. Lora Jones said she asked for and received the entire $150,000 payment by wire, in advance, because Roger Stone had “burned” her once before on a job.Neither Hooper nor the FEC determined why the Committee listed “Creative Marketing” rather than “Unique Graphics” as the recipient of the payments. In another anomaly, a Daily Business Review examination of Virginia State corporate records found that “Unique Graphics” was NOT a legal entity when the two payments of $150,000 and $50,000 were made and received. The company’s charter was terminated in 1994, and the firm was purged from the state’s records in 1999.And despite state records showing that Ann Stone was a principal of “Unique Graphics”, Lora Jones said she was the sole owner and employee. She also said, however, that she was a longtime employee of the Stone Group.</blockquote>Though there was the possibility that McCarty would be hit with a fine of $450 000 for her violations, she only got a $2000 penalty, $1000 for filing an incomplete financial report, $1000 for the $150,000 contribution, which was a little over the $500 contribution limit. She still had hefty legal bills of over $50,000, so she set up a legal defense fund, and asked for contributions. Florida Republican Party Chairman Sid Dinerstein would contribute $100 and try to solicit more through his mailing list. “From our perspective, she fought the good fight even though she didn’t cross her T’s and I’s properly,” said Dinerstein<a name="bkfrftnote98" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote98" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">98</a>. Two years later, in 2005, McCarty would have to pay a $3750 fine, after she admitted to the Florida Elections Commission that she accepted lobbyist contributions into her legal fund. She was facing re-election that year. “It’s old news and I think the lightness of the sanction is indicative of how minor and technical the offense was,” said Sid Dinerstein. “It’s really a non-issue. Mary’s got some great current issues that are going to work for her. I think she’s going to have a very easy re-election.” Dinerstein would continue: “She is virtually single-handedly responsible for getting Scripps settled from the commission, and the whole county is aware of it, and she will be rewarded for it as she should be.”<a name="bkfrftnote99" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote99" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">99</a> Scripps was a local convention center. Four years later- Well, it’s kindof complicated:<blockquote style="border-left-width: 10px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(54, 188, 171); padding: 10px; text-align: justify; line-height: 22.75px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="http://archive.is/hdA6U" sl-processed="1">FEDS CHRONICLE DECADE OF FRAUD IN MCCARTYS’ CASE</a>By TONY DORIS and JENNIFER SORENTRUEPalm Beach Post Staff WritersFriday, January 09, 2009WEST PALM BEACH – For more than a decade, federal prosecutors said Friday, Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty and her husband profited from manipulating hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public business for their own gain.Mary and Kevin McCarty’s behind-the-scenes machinations enabled them to sway lucrative bond deals with the county government, the school board, the county’s Housing Finance Authority and the city of Delray Beach, prosecutors said after filing charges against the fallen power couple.The bond deals involved some of the county’s most important initiatives during the past decade. Among them were the development of The Scripps Research Institute, the county’s ill-fated convention center hotel project and the $100 million initiative to limit building in the Agricultural Reserve. Also implicated are bonds used for Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter and the Old School Square parking garage in Delray Beach.To cover her tracks, Mary McCarty lied to investigators about gifts and favors she had received from developers and other firms doing business with the county, according to 57 pages of formal charges filed Friday in federal court.
The McCartys’ take from all these efforts, the feds say: at least $300,000.Their likely penalties include years behind bars, the forfeiture of their ill-gotten gains, public disgrace and the loss of Mary McCarty’s state pension. Once declared felons, the two GOP stalwarts won’t even be allowed to vote.</blockquote>The scheme of Mary McCarty and her husband, Kevin, involved, among other things, pressuring the city to award the bond work to Kevin’s firm, Bear Stearns – yes, that Bear Stearns. Two of her fellow county commissioners had also been convicted and sentenced to prison. On July 19, 2011, she entered Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas<a name="bkfrftnote100" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote100" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">100</a>. “Public trust is a sacred thing, and I violated that trust. And it’s something I’m ashamed of,” she would say in prison. “As I was conducting myself for all these years, I did what I thought was customary and correct,” McCarty would explain. “And if it wasn’t, I would rationalize that it was no big deal. I did a lot of minimizing.” McCarty now had $98,000 in fines that she had to pay off. She had expected to collect a $65,000 a year pension, but that was now gone with her felony conviction. She had expected to retire the year she went to prison. Now, she needed to find work when she got out. “I’m going to hope that there’s some courageous person out there who believes in second chances that’s willing to hire me and give me a second chance,” she said. “I know how government works, local government.”<a name="bkfrftnote101" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote101" sl-processed="1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">101</a> On March 25th, 2011, she entered a halfway house. While in prison, McCarty said she would try to get her civil rights restored so she could once again vote<a name="bkfrftnote102" style="text-decoration: underline;" /><a href="http://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/roger-stone-pretty-reckless-is-going-straight-to-hell-part-four/#ftnote102" sl-processed="1">102</a>.</div><div>==</div>