Readers know that she resigned last week as Florida's lieutenant governor, after a $300 million gambling operation (for whom she once served as a public relations consultant) masked as a chain of veterans-charity-oriented Internet cafes was uncovered. Nearly 60 people have been arrested, but Ms. Carroll has not been charged with any crime. However, over the years she also submitted from side-eye-worthy financial disclosure statements. From The Miami Herald: "As
a Republican state House member in 2004, Carroll listed a net worth of
$271,000. The next year it ballooned to $23 million, and in 2006 it
skyrocketed to more than $202 million. But later that year, she filed an amended form that dropped two zeroes, reducing her net worth to $2.02 million. A
year later it plummeted to $520,000, without any detailed explanation
from Carroll or noticeable changes in her assets or liabilities."
More: "Even
though Carroll has left public office and her record-keeping is years
old, ethics experts say she is a poster child for the problem of public
officials not taking financial disclosure seriously enough. They also
say the Legislature is on the wrong track to be considering changes to
allow public officials to amend flawed forms without fear of
prosecution. Integrity Florida, an ethics watchdog group, posted Carroll’s forms on its website, integrityflorida.org. 'I
saw some of the messiest forms I’ve ever seen from a public official,'
said Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida. 'Someone should have been asking
questions.'"
Ms. Carroll has a response: "Through
spokesman Rick Oppenheim, Carroll issued a statement Monday that cited
on her 2006 form 'a scrivener’s error where the comma was placed in the
incorrect place on Form 6. The inaccurate amount of net worth reported
was amended on Form 6X to reflect the actual $2.02 million in 2005. This
net worth included inheritance from the death of her parents plus that
of her spouse.' Oppenheim said that on the financial disclosure
form, only jointly held assets need to be reported, so that her
husband’s solely owned assets should not have been included in the
reported net worth. In 2006, she backed out her husband’s assets and her
net worth declined."
Jennifer Carroll’s Inaccurate Financial Disclosures Prompt Calls For Reform In Florida
