State official demands audit amid investigation into Lee County sheriff

A state lawmaker is backing the high-ranking Lee County leader who went public on WINK News Tuesday with his warning about possible money trouble inside the sheriff’s office.

That state representative told anchor Claire Galt exclusively Wednesday that he’s the one who encouraged the comptroller to put the warning in writing after he got shut down.

What got these two people so concerned is money.

Kevin Karnes is the Lee comptroller. Adam Botana is the state representative.

When they heard reports of fraud and money laundering in Sheriff Carmine Marceno‘s office, they believed they had to take action.

A meeting behind closed doors had the Lee County Comptroller so concerned about what was happening inside the Lee County Sheriff’s Office that he went to Botana to ask what to do.

“He said, ‘Hey, I’m asking the county to look into these consultants, and pretty much he was told not to. They got a lot of pushback, so that’s really concerning for me,” Botana said.

WINK Investigations got copies of those consultant contracts. They show several people on the sheriff’s office payroll for various things, like social media help, writing kids’ books and even a $9,000-a-month deal with former state senator Lizbeth Benaquisto’s company for lobbying and advising.

Botana told us that Karnes wanted to look into those, and an external auditor did, too.

So Botana told Karnes to put his worry in writing, sending a letter dated Oct. 29, in which he admits “county leadership and the undersheriff expressed passionate disagreements” with the external auditor.

“The undersheriff said, ‘No, we’ll take care of that internally, don’t worry about it, or we’ll take care of it.’ That’s probably not a good look,” Botana said.

Karnes told us on Tuesday, “I think we need to let the facts play out. It’s not a rush-to-judgment sort of thing to look at any county department and do an audit. It’s a very calculated decision that we believe is in the best interest for the taxpayers.”

“I mean, everybody needs oversight. You get $2 billion, [it] needs oversight,” Botana said.

Both men said they’re more concerned now that the FBI is investigating the sheriff and that a federal court has served subpoenas on Lee County for records about the sheriff’s home and headquarters amid accusations of money laundering.

Botana said that this concerns him even more now.

Karnes’ letter asking for the audit wasn’t the first letter the county received.

In the wake of the pandemic and Hurricane Ian, Botana and three other state lawmakers sent this letter to Karnes asking for an audit of how the county spent those federal funds.

Botana said Lee County’s leaders gave him a lot of pushback.

That’s why Botana pushed Karnes to write his letter asking for an audit of the sheriff’s office.