Veteran Palm Beach County Commissioner Is Sentenced in Public Corruption Probe

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, and Daniel W. Auer, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, announced that former Palm Beach County Commissioner, defendant Mary B. McCarty, 54, of Delray Beach, FL, was sentenced today before the Honorable Donald M. Middlebrooks in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Defendant Mary McCarty was sentenced today to 42 months of imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Defendant McCarty was immediately remanded to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence. Defendant McCarty had previously pled guilty to an Information charging her with a mail and wire fraud conspiracy to deprive the citizens of Palm Beach County of their intangible right to her honest services as a county commissioner. As described in the charging document, and as the defendant admitted at her plea, Mary McCarty engaged in a pattern of defrauding the public of her honest services as an elected official, by misusing her position as a Commissioner on the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners (BCC), to personally enrich herself, her husband, and their associates through a series of municipal bond transactions and through her receipt of gifts and gratuities from entities and persons doing business before the BCC. Further, Mary McCarty advocated and voted on numerous matters before the BCC while she concealed her true financial interests, received significant and material gifts and gratuities from individuals and entities doing business before the BCC, and failed to file or filed incomplete or false disclosure reports to conceal from the public her true financial interests.

Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the IRS and FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Carlton, Julia A. Paylor, Antonia Barnes and former Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.