Two months after a Lee County Sheriff’s political rival accused Sheriff Carmine Marceno of money laundering and said he was under investigation by the FBI, the county agency said it is “working cooperatively” with law enforcement.
When asked last week if the federal agency had notified Marceno of an investigation into him, an office spokesperson responded by saying it was working with law enforcement partners. “As always – and in all matters- the Sheriff’s Office is working cooperatively, and cohesive with our law enforcement partners,” said Commander Anita Iriarte, the agency’s chief public information officer, in an email Friday.
Federal grand jury subpoenas Lee County in an investigation involving Lee Sheriff Marceno “Consistent with our protocols, we would refer questions regarding any other law enforcement agencies’ actions to those agencies,” Iriarte continued.
The FBI declined to confirm the existence of an investigation.
“As a matter of policy, the FBI does not confirm the existence or status of any investigative work,” Andrea Aprea, with the FBI Tampa field office’s public affairs team, said Friday. Naples-based criminal defense attorney Donald Day, who is representing Marceno, said in an email Monday morning the FBI had contacted neither him nor Marceno.
In early September, Mike Hollow published a recording in which a former sheriff’s office contractor accused Marceno of laundering taxpayer money through him. Records confirm that Ken Romano, a Bonita Springs jeweler, was paid more than $30,000 in 2022 as a social media expert. However, he and his business have minimal social media footprints.
Hollow, a write-in candidate, had challenged Marceno for the sheriff’s job in the general election. Marceno won reelection Nov. 5 with 90% of the vote in his favor.
In the recording, Romano accused Marceno of using Romano to secretly pass taxpayer money, in cash, to one of Marceno’s family members.
He added that he often paid off Marceno’s gambling debts. In Marceno’s annual financial disclosure forms, he reported more than $400,000 in gambling income over the last four years.
Marceno called the accusations of money laundering “baseless” in the weeks following initial publication, but he has since declined to comment to The News-Press / Naples Daily News, despite repeated requests made to his office, his campaign, and his lawyer.
Marceno was also recorded accepting a stack of cash from Romano in June of 2024, inside Romano’s Bonita Springs jewelry store.
Day said Marceno had “conducted legitimate sales transactions” with Romano when sent the video in late September. Marceno has not personally responded to questions.
Hollow told a reporter in September the FBI was investigating Marceno based on Romano’s claims of laundering taxpayer money, and that Romano was cooperating with the investigation. Marceno has not been charged with any crime.
Romano, reached Sunday, declined to comment for this story.
Hollow, reached Sunday, said he did not have firsthand knowledge of the FBI’s interactions with the sheriff’s office.
Iriarte previously called the accusations of money laundering and allegations of an FBI investigation into Marceno “politically motivated issues not related to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.”
Hundreds of thousands paid in sheriff’s office contracts
Too, The News-Press / Naples Daily News found that under Marceno, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office had paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to contractors whose contracts had no clear requirements, goals, or amount of hours of work required.
One of the contracts was signed with a fake or assumed name, “Grace Birch,” netting an LLC operated by Bonita Springs resident Susan Edwards more than $150,000 in just over a year and a half, despite contracting with the LLC for $60,000 a year. The contract is for consulting and writing books about animals and animal abuse.
Case law says it is legal to sign a contract under a pseudonym, so long as both entities understand the identity of the person signing the contract.
Despite repeated questions to the Sheriff’s Office, it is not clear whether Marceno knew Birch was Edwards’ pseudonym at the time of signing. Public Affairs Captain Todd Olmer said in email, “Grace Birch is well known in the community, and to [Lee County Sheriff’s Office]. Use of her nom de plum when signing the contract resulted in a legally recognized and enforceable agreement.””
Another state-registered LLC, AGL Solutions, owned by former state senator Lizbeth Benacquisto, was paid $9,000 a month, from March 1, 2023, through March 1 2024 for “attend(ing), whenever possible, meetings of government and community organizations … and otherwise assessing community issues, concerns and opportunities; and/or providing advice and consultation as the Sheriff deems beneficial to the agency.”
Benacquisto re-signed a contract on behalf of the LLC for the same terms from March 1, 2024, through the same date in 2025. Her contract is ongoing.
Benacquisto first began contracting for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in March 2022. Payment invoices provided to The News-Press / Naples Daily News show that she has been paid $269,000 since then.
Edwards and Benacquisto were among several sheriff’s office contractors who did not respond to multiple requests for comment about their contracts in October.