For Lee County Undersheriff John Holloway, the sheriff’s office is a family business.
As if Holloway’s $280,000 public salary as second-in-command under embattled Sheriff Carmine Marceno weren’t enough, now his wife, lawyer Kathleen Holloway, has been added to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office payroll at $155,000 a year, bringing the couple’s total take from the agency to more than $430,000 annually, internal LCSO documents show.
State ethics law forbids public officials like John Holloway from not only hiring relatives but also from advocating for relatives to be hired at their own agencies. The sheriff’s office maintains it wasn’t the undersheriff but Marceno himself who “recruited” Kathleen Holloway after an as yet unnamed outside law firm determined the hiring didn’t pose a legal issue for the undersheriff.
When contacted on a private line by the Florida Trident, John Holloway apparently believed it was Marceno, answering, “Hello sheriff!” When told it was a reporter regarding his wife’s employment, he said, “I have to go,” and hung up. Shortly thereafter, Lee County sheriff’s Capt. Chris Fine, who works in the public affairs department, followed up with a call to the Trident reporter and later an email in which he defended the hire.
Fine wrote that Kathleen Holloway, an attorney who has worked for health care firms in the past, was hired as part of the agency’s efforts to reduce inmate medical costs by utilizing the federal Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and private insurance companies of inmates.
According to her job description, Mrs. Holloway answers directly to LCSO chief legal counsel Abbi Smith, who herself answers to Mr. Holloway, who is also a licensed attorney.
“Attorney [Kathleen] Holloway’s extensive legal and business experience in the healthcare industry, dealing with insurance, provider and governmental regulatory issues, uniquely prepared her to assist the Sheriff in implementing and overseeing the Sheriff’s initiatives,” Fine wrote the Trident, adding, “After confirming with outside counsel that her husband’s position with the agency posed no issue, the Sheriff recruited Attorney Holloway to implement and manage these cost reduction efforts.”
Fine claimed the program has saved the agency $1 million since its inception in October. When the Trident requested copies of the legal memo and all other correspondence from the outside law firm, the agency responded there were no such documents. A request for the name of the law firm conducted the legal review had not been answered prior to publication.
“Ripe for scrutiny”
Caroline Klancke, executive director of the Florida Ethics Institute, said the state’s anti-nepotism law essentially forbids public officials like Holloway from having anything to do with the hiring of relatives.
“Was Holloway involved in the contemplation of hiring the wife or did he advocate for the hiring in any way? That’s a key question,” said Klancke, a former general counsel and deputy executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics. “The anti-nepotism law restricts officials from advocating or being involved in the hiring process.”
The anti-nepotism law isn’t a criminal one; it’s enforced by the ethics commission, which has the power to remove, suspend and fine public officials.
“The hiring of relatives by those in power undermines the public’s confidence in officials who are using taxpayer dollars,” Klancke said. “I think it’s ripe for scrutiny by the Florida Commission on Ethics to determine if the hiring of the spouse in the sheriff’s office was valid, or whether it involved [Undersheriff Holloway] using his public position for the benefit of his own spouse.”
“Brains of the operation”
Marceno and Holloway boast a friendship of nearly 30 years. While Marceno is the public face of the department, Holloway mostly operates behind the scenes. Multiple law enforcement sources tell the Florida Trident the undersheriff — whose $283,000 salary surpasses Marceno’s annual pay of $227,000 — wields unparalleled power at the agency.
“He is the brains of the operation,” said Mike Hollow, a former commander of the internal affairs division who spent 17 years with the agency. “Marceno holds the position [of sheriff] and makes a few decisions, but Holloway controls things.”
Still the undersheriff has largely avoided public scrutiny during the scandal that has consumed LCSO in recent months. A federal grand jury is investigating the sheriff and others after a former close associate and honorary sheriff’s deputy, Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano, alleged Marceno provided him a no-work contract with LCSO involving kickbacks to the sheriff’s father.
Romano said in an audio recording that the contract originally paid him $4,000 a month before Marceno added $1,700 more a month so he could make car payments on a Mercedes Benz the sheriff had purchased for his father, Carmine Marceno Sr., who died this past December. In the recording, Romano said Marceno instructed Holloway to give him the pay raise.
It was the former LCSO internal affairs chief, Hollow, who recorded Romano’s statement and accompanied him to the FBI last May, prompting the federal investigation. Hollow at the time was in the midst of his own unsuccessful campaign for sheriff against Marceno. He said he finds it hard to believe Holloway’s wife could be hired without the undersheriff’s involvement.
“It doesn’t pass the sniff test, the fact that they hired her directly,” Hollow said. “It looks like a money grab to me.”
About the Author: Bob Norman is an award-winning investigative reporter who serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Trident and journalism program director for the Florida Center for Government Accountability. He can be contacted at journalism@flcga.org. The Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to producing impactful local investigative reporting in Southwest Florida and across the state.