Lee County Sheriff's Office

A video, which can be seen here, shows Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno driving south on six-lane South Tamiami Trail in a black Lamborghini Huracan convertible with the top down on a sunny day in Estero. Shooting the video is Marceno’s former friend, Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano, who drives in the lane to the right of the sheriff in the same direction. A brief race begins at Romano’s prompting.

When Lee County Undersheriff John Holloway’s daughter Morgan and her fiance Joe Trubilla posted a wedding registry on October 21, 2022, they appealed to friends and relatives for spa dates, a cruise, and other presents before their March 2023 wedding.But it was her father’s law enforcement agency that provided perhaps the biggest gift of all: a $5,000-per-month Lee County Sheriff’s Office consulting contract for Trubilla to run a youth boxing program.

As he faces a federal corruption investigation and also floats a potential run for Congress, the last thing Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno needs to do is upset his supposed allies in the Republican Party.But that may happen as a result of the surfacing of insulting and profanity-riddled audio recordings of Marceno talking about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis — as well as presidential daughter Ivanka Trump — obtained by the Florida Trident.

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.

In the spring of 2023, Cape Coral resident Tammy King went to a doctor’s office in nearby St. James City, hoping to refill her prescriptions for medication to treat her ADHD. Instead she was roughed up by Lee County sheriff’s deputies and wrongfully forced into a mental facility, according to a federal lawsuit filed on her behalf.

In a social media conversation Tuesday afternoon, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno discussed the state of the agency, highlighting what he described as the agency's accomplishments. In the fifteen-minute exchange, he mentioned next to nothing about an ongoing FBI investigation.

A run-in at the Luminary Hotel put an honorary deputy's badge to the test for a friend of Sheriff Carmine Marceno.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno put Ken Romano on the public payroll as a consultant in 2022 at $5,700 a month to provide “guidance regarding public relations” and social media at the agency. The consulting agreement, released by LCSO today, claimed the 55-year-old Romano possessed the “ability, certifications and experience” to do the job and was “duly qualified.”But Romano isn’t a public relations or social media expert. He’s 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 — $1,700 a month — was used to pay for a Mercedes Benz the sheriff bought for his father, Carmine Marceno Sr.

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.

A 25-year-old Cape Coral man is facing homicide, robbery and other charges in connection with a fatal shooting on Three Oaks Parkway Thursday.Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno reported the arrest of Khylil Draine came Saturday.“We knew our suspect in minutes, we arrested him in hours," the sheriff said. "This case still has a lot of work, it’s a fresh case.”