Chair of George W. Bush Campaign Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison For Corruption

The Palm Beach Daily News reports:

The charges stem from McCarty's votes on bond work benefiting companies that her husband worked for -- Raymond James and later Bear Stearns -- as a bond underwriter.

In addition, the McCartys accepted "significant and material undisclosed gifts and gratuities" from hotel developer Ocean Properties, which was awarded a county contract to develop a convention center hotel in West Palm Beach. Gifts included free lodging or "grossly discounted room rates not available to the general public" for their stay at Sunset Key Guest Cottages in Key West and other Ocean Properties hotels.

According to the Department of Justice:

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, and Daniel W. Auer, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, announced that former Palm Beach County Commissioner, defendant Mary B. McCarty, 54, of Delray Beach, FL, was sentenced today before the Honorable Donald M. Middlebrooks in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Defendant Mary McCarty was sentenced today to 42 months of imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Defendant McCarty was immediately remanded to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence. Defendant McCarty had previously pled guilty to an Information charging her with a mail and wire fraud conspiracy to deprive the citizens of Palm Beach County of their intangible right to her honest services as a county commissioner. As described in the charging document, and as the defendant admitted at her plea, Mary McCarty engaged in a pattern of defrauding the public of her honest services as an elected official, by misusing her position as a Commissioner on the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners (BCC), to personally enrich herself, her husband, and their associates through a series of municipal bond transactions and through her receipt of gifts and gratuities from entities and persons doing business before the BCC. Further, Mary McCarty advocated and voted on numerous matters before the BCC while she concealed her true financial interests, received significant and material gifts and gratuities from individuals and entities doing business before the BCC, and failed to file or filed incomplete or false disclosure reports to conceal from the public her true financial interests.

Palm Beach Post has her career timeline:

1998: Is Jeb Bush's regional campaign chairwoman in his gubernatorial bid.

March 1999: Forms an exploratory committee looking at the possibility of a congressional bid.

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.

June 2004: Engages in a public feud with Masilotti, who asks the county attorney's office to investigate whether McCarty could vote on a rezoning if her husband did business with the firm making the request. Masilotti also calls her "Bloody Mary and accuses her of "flying around the 12th floor of county building on her favorite broom." Meanwhile, McCarty asks the county attorney to investigate various alleged ethical breaches, without mentioning Masilotti by name.

July 2004: Acknowledges that she illegally accepted more than $20,000 in cash from development interests and other businesses courting favors from the commission. The money went to a legal defense she formed because of the judiciary committee case. In a state ethics case, she later agrees to pay back $3,750 in illegal donations to the fund and agrees to a fine of a similar amount.

2006: Is elected to her fifth and final term on the county commission.