Allegations of money laundering and misappropriation of funds made against Lee County Sheriff Marceno

By Bob Norman

Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano didn’t hide his association with Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.

The two men were allegedly close friends who shared a taste for gambling, bling, and high-end cars. The 55-year-old Romano defended the sheriff in social media posts and displayed a framed “Keep Carmine Marceno Sheriff” campaign poster and badge-bedecked plaque from the sheriff’s office at his jewelry store on Bonita Beach Road.

But the friendship blew up recently, and audio recordings allegedly show Romano making serious allegations against the sheriff involving Romano’s own employment as a “consultant” with LCSO. In the recordings, Romano alleged Marceno gave him a no-work contract at LCSO paying him $5,700 a month, $1,700 of which was paid to the sheriff’s father, Carmine Marceno Sr., for car payments on a Mercedes Benz.

“[E]very month I would just give his father the money,” Romano said in the recording. “I would take cash, I would throw it on top of the medicine cabinet and [Marceno Sr.] would come in and take it. Like, it was secretive, you know?”

Romano also claimed that Sheriff Marceno, an avid gambler who reported nearly half a million dollars in casino proceeds as income in the last two financial disclosure forms he filed with the state, owed him a lot of money.

“The kid [Sheriff Marceno] owes me almost close to a quarter of a million dollars,” he said. “I bailed him out of every single gambling debt. I gave him tons and tons of jewelry.”

The audio recordings were made public by Mike Hollow, a retired 17-year Lee County Sheriff’s Office veteran who served as commander of internal affairs. Hollow is running as a write-in candidate against the 52-year-old Marceno for the purpose, he said, of exposing his corruption. 

Hollow, the sheriff’s only opponent in the race, said the recordings were made legally upon the consent of Romano, with whom he’s been in contact for the past six months. Romano, whom he dubbed a “ghost employee,” is also cooperating in an FBI investigation of his employment at LCSO, said Hollow.

“There is an active federal investigation that Ken [Romano] is part of,” Hollow told the Florida Trident. “He’s been given explicit direction not to talk to anybody about it. I wasn’t given that direction, which is why I have no problem putting this out.”

Hollow provided the Trident evidence of Romano’s former employment status with LCSO, but the agency did not respond prior to publication to a public records request made on Sept. 6 for Romano’s contract. When the Trident requested an interview with the sheriff to address the specific allegations, Lt. Todd Olmer asked for a deadline to respond. That deadline of Wednesday at 5 p.m. passed with no further response from the sheriff’s office. A follow-up email was also met with silence.

Romano didn’t return a phone message left at his jewelry store, K & M Jewelers, for comment. On Sept. 8, four days after Hollow aired the allegations on Facebook, Romano cryptically posted a photo on the social media site of Al Pacino from Serpico, a movie about a real-life cop, Frank Serpico, who exposed corruption among his ranks in the New York Police Department.

“Everybody in the sheriff’s office knew who Ken Romano was,” said Hollow. “Everybody knew who he was and what he represented. He has all sheriff’s office apparel and honorary badges.”

A former close Marceno associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, repeated the claim that Romano was given an honorary sheriff’s badge, which is bestowed at the sheriff’s will and is a replica of the real thing inscribed with the word “honorary.”  Marceno has run into controversy with the way he doled out the badges in the past; one recipient was a court-adjudicated fraudster.

“Marceno made [Romano] an honorary sheriff’s deputy and put him on a contract as a consultant,” said the sheriff’s former associate. “They didn’t want him at headquarters. They were offended that he had a pass to go anywhere he wanted to go. He had complete access.”

Romano said in the recording he rarely went to headquarters while working under his consulting agreement with LCSO, which he said was finalized in January 2022. It’s not clear what, exactly, he was supposed to be consulting the sheriff about.

“I fuckin’ showed up when I wanted,” said Romano in the recording. “If I went five times in the six months I worked there, it was a lot.”

He said his LCSO pay started at $4,000 a month, but then Sheriff Marceno, who often drives high-end sports cars, approached him about giving him a raise so Romano could make payments on the sheriff’s father’s car. 

“The day [Sheriff Marceno] bought his Ferrari was the same day that he turned around to me and he said, ‘Listen bro, I want to do something nice for my father,’” Romano said in the recording. “I said, ‘What do you want to do?’ He said, ‘I want to give him a [nice car] so he can travel back and forth from here to the east coast to get his [medical] treatments.’”

The father’s car was a 2020 S-Class S560 Mercedes Benz, Romano said in the recording, with an all-white leather interior and a cost he “believed” was $109,000. The raise, he added, was initially set at $1,500 before Sheriff Marceno remembered his father would have to pay insurance on the car – and then had Undersheriff John Holloway bump it up to $1,700. 

“I got that raise and I was giving Carmine’s father money,” Romano said in the recording. “I know it wasn’t correct.”

He said at one point he had a frank talk with Carmine Sr. about the arrangement. 

“I said, ‘Can that be considered money laundering or you know misappropriation of taxpayer dollars?’ And pops was like, ‘Yea,’” Romano recounted in the recording. “I said, ‘That’s great, now the kid [Sheriff Marceno] just involved me in a f–king crime.’”

Hollow said he wasn’t sure why Romano decided to tell his story. 

“I don’t know what triggered it for Ken,” said Hollow. “I think at some point in time he had enough of being used by [Sheriff Marceno], or he felt like he was being used.”

Besides posting the audio on Facebook, Hollow posted a call-out to elected officials to review the evidence. He said none had contacted him yet. He also said he has heard nothing from the sheriff or his campaign. 

“Any of the county commissioners, Gov. DeSantis, any of the congressmen, senators, representatives,” Romano said in the post, “if you want to reach out to me, I will come to you and I will show you everything. … It’s up to you.”

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 reached at [email protected]. 

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