{"id":60025,"date":"2024-09-18T20:46:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T00:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=60025"},"modified":"2024-09-18T20:46:06","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T00:46:06","slug":"lee-county-sheriffs-office-releases-alleged-ghost-employee-contract-with-jeweler-who-claims-kickback-scheme-involving-the-sheriff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2024\/09\/lee-county-sheriffs-office-releases-alleged-ghost-employee-contract-with-jeweler-who-claims-kickback-scheme-involving-the-sheriff\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office releases alleged \u201cghost employee\u201d contract with jeweler who claims kickback scheme involving the sheriff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno put Ken Romano on the public payroll as a consultant in 2022 at $5,700 a month to provide \u201cguidance regarding public relations\u201d and social media at the agency. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/floridatrident.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ConsultingContractHistory_Romano_091724_Redacted.pdf\">consulting agreement<\/a>, released by LCSO Tuesday, claimed the 55-year-old Romano possessed the \u201cability, certifications and experience\u201d to do the job and was \u201cduly qualified.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"875\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/marceno-875x1024.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-59996\" style=\"width:408px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/marceno-875x1024.webp 875w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/marceno-256x300.webp 256w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/marceno-768x899.webp 768w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/marceno.webp 1312w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 875px) 100vw, 875px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>But Romano isn\u2019t a public relations or social media expert. He\u2019s a Bonita Springs jeweler and former Marceno gambling buddy who said in a recently surfaced audio recording that his LCSO consulting job was a no-work sham and a portion of the money \u2013 $1,700 a month \u2013 was used to pay for a Mercedes Benz the sheriff bought for his father, Carmine Marceno Sr.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno put Ken Romano on the public payroll as a consultant in 2022 at $5,700 a month to provide \u201cguidance regarding public relations\u201d and social media&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":59996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[2815],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60025"}],"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=60025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60027,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60025\/revisions\/60027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}