{"id":31007,"date":"2014-05-22T21:14:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T01:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=31007"},"modified":"2014-05-22T21:14:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T01:14:07","slug":"justice-report-calls-florida-second-most-corrupt-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2014\/05\/justice-report-calls-florida-second-most-corrupt-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Report Calls Florida
Second Most Corrupt State"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matt Smith\/Freelance Journalist<\/p>\n

\"\"While Florida is predominantly Republican controlled, \u00a0US Justice data validates that it is the 2nd worse state in the Union for public corruption by officials. \u00a0Ex-Commissioner Hall decisively didn\u2019t have a chance with that sort of attractive model. \u00a0After the sentencing trial of one of our Ex-Lee County Commissioner and 19th District Congressman Radel drug arrest by federal investigators in 2013, there was a self imposed dictate to look into how deep the corruption in our state was from a statistical point of view using US Justice Department data. \u00a0Lee County is not alone with the corruption in the state but certainly a very active contributor. Just recently State Senator Bonaquisto(REP) \u00a0is under investigation by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for election violations originating from her desires to replace Congressman Radel in the 19th District. The allegations seem vague, but where there\u2019s smoke there\u2019s fire.<\/p>\n

Other 2012\/2014 state corruption investigations and indictments were:
\nORLANDO, FL\u2014United States Attorney Robert E. O\u2019Neill announces that U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven sentenced Ronald Clifton (age 42, South Daytona) to two years in federal prison for bribery and making false statements to FBI agents. At the time of the charged offenses, Clifton was the mayor and a councilman of the City of South Daytona.<\/p>\n

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Michael B. Steinbach, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Miami Field Office, announce that Manuel L. Maro\u00f1o, 41, the former mayor of the city of Sweetwater, and Jorge L. Forte, 41, a lobbyist, both of Miami, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud for their participation in a scheme to personally benefit through the use of Maro\u00f1o\u2019s position as mayor of Sweetwater. Sentencing has been scheduled for January 23, 2014, at\u00a010:00 a.m.before U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch. At sentencing, Maro\u00f1o and Forte face a maximum statutory sentence of five years in prison.
\nCLARKSBURG, WV \u2013 Two Palm Bay, Florida, residents were sentenced to federal prison by U.S. District Court Judge Irene M. Keeley on corruption charges
\nDuring the period of 2003 to 2012 data dictates that Nationwide 22,706 public officials (Federal & local government) were indicted and 20,264 prosecuted. \u00a0With that record hanging over our great nation, its hypocritical at best to officially complaint about corruption in another government somewhere in the world.
\nPublic corruption is defined as a breach of the public\u2019s trust by government officials\u2014whether elected, appointed, or under contract\u2014and\/or private individuals who use their public office for personal gain. It is a violation of federal law for any federal or state government official to ask for or receive anything of value for or because of any official act. Under federal law, the person who offers or pays a bribe is also guilty. These crimes are the result of deals sealed with private conversations, quick handshakes, and \u201cunder-the-table\u201d money. Because of the secretive nature of bribes, such crimes are often difficult to detect and even more difficult to prove without public assistance
\nSome public officials have total disrespect for the people that voted them into public office and simply do not have fear of prosecution due to some historically light sentencing from Judges. It is suggested that this is in direct result of both the public and private relationship in which these officials were exposed with the Judges on a daily basis while they were performing their official duties. \u00a0In the future it would put less pressure of the judges if a Grand Jury is convened. Some have considered the sentencing of Ms Hall light, but there are circumstances surrounding her level of cooperation that she gave Federal investigators concerning actions of others, therefore it really isn\u2019t in the public\u2019s best interest to be a self appointed \u201carm chair lawyer\u201d and second guess the US Attorney Office. \u00a0In retrospect it does seem odd that a US Congressman named Jessie Jackson Jr was indicted on the same charge as Mrs Hall\u2019s but he received the maximum of 3 years in prison. \u00a0After sentencing, \u00a0an Online Poll was conducted by the Ft Myers News-Press and results were:
\nDo you think Tammy Hall’s 6 month prison sentence is too lenient?(2)
\nYES \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a077%
\nNO \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a026%
\nIt is not suggested that there is a racial bias involved, but one must ask if this sentence is meeting the spirit of the law where it dictates \u201cequal justice under the law\u201d. \u00a0Our public officials are paid very good in this state and its not acceptable that they use their office to make extra bucks on the good people of this State.
\nFlorida attracts a variety of individuals and families. \u00a0Most of them are welcomed in order for them to thrive and give back to our Community. \u00a0Some people moving to the state are \u201dleeching carpetbaggers\u201d and their only concerned with what they can take and not what they can give. \u00a0In a small way most of these degenerates that are mistakenly elected to be our leaders can be publicly exposed to the electorate by simply performing a back ground check on all candidates when they file for public office. \u00a0 Just the existence of such a requirement would discourage anyone that had a precarious background not to file in the first place. Filing candidates could have the resulting information placed on the Supervisors of Election website for public information and more properly inform the voters.
\nOur own Governor Scott\u2019s reputation was marred during his race for Governor.
\nScott started what was first Columbia in the spring of 1987, purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. The company grew quickly by purchasing more hospitals. A hospital network created efficiencies. In 1994, Scott\u2019s Columbia purchased Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals, and merged the companies. When Scott resigned as CEO in 1997, Columbia\/HCA had grown to more than 340 hospitals, 135 surgery centers and 550 home health locations in 37 states and two foreign countries, Scott\u2019s campaign says. The company employed more than 285,000 people.<\/p>\n

Scott resigned amid a federal Medicare fraud investigation that led to the company paying $1.7 billion in fines.
\nCouncil of 100 Governors on Nov. 18, 2010, a couple weeks after his victory, Scott said: \u00a0“We need to get a waiver to reform our Medicaid program and rework our health care benefits for state employees. Consumer directed care will lower the costs and increase the available choices. I have considerable experience in driving down health care costs while maintaining quality. The cost-saving measures we put into place at Columbia\/HCA drove down national health care inflation from 18% to 8% in seven years.” \u00a0I would agree with the Governor, it would be extremely easy to drive down costs if your swindle your way to that goal.
\nIt is wrong,” then-Attorney General Janet Reno said in the release. “This investigation has been the largest multi-agency investigation of a health care provider ever undertaken by the U.S. and reflects our commitment to vigorously pursuing all types of health care fraud schemes.”
\nFlorida\u2019s then Chief Financial Officer during the Gubernatorial elections stated “If Scott proposes the same accountability measures for Florida government that he used at Columbia\/HCA, we’ll have to back up the paddy wagon to the front door of the Capitol,” Sink spokeswoman Kyra Jennings said in a May 18, 2010, press release. “Florida simply can’t trust someone who was forced to resign as the head of a company that pled guilty to massive amounts of systematic fraud, including 14 felonies, leading to a historic $1.7 billion fine.”
\nWith the ever increasing public corruption that is growing in the State, Tallahassee lawmakers should be challenged to proceed with a fair and cleansing amendment to the Elections Laws to allow some sort of filtering of any future candidates in order to maintain \u201cPublic Trust\u201d.<\/p>\n

Credit Footnotes:
\n(1) REPORT TO CONGRESS ON THE ACTIVITIES AND OPERATIONS OF THE PUBLIC INTEGRITY SECTION
\nFOR 2012
\n(2) News Press ONLINE poll 1\/15\/14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matt Smith\/Freelance Journalist While Florida is predominantly Republican controlled, \u00a0US Justice data validates that it is the 2nd worse state in the Union for public corruption by officials. \u00a0Ex-Commissioner… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}