While jogging in her gated community, Vanessa Pagan noticed an older man in a white BMW following her, passing her in both directions, and at times holding his phone out of the car window as if photographing or videotaping her.
It wasn’t the first time.
The Puerto Rico-born Pagan told Collier County Sheriff’’s deputies she had endured the chilling behavior in the normally placid Saturnia Lakes community at least a half dozen times in the first few months after she moved there.
This time, on May 15, 2017, she said the apparent stalker was “particularly aggressive,” prompting a crying and visibly shaking Pagan, who was 41 at the time, to report it as a crime.
“He kept pace with her [in the BMW], forcing traffic to drive around him, for miles,” Collier County Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Greeves wrote in his report. “At times he would pull to the curb forcing her to divert her path. At one point she became so afraid for her safety she hid in a set of bushes near the clubhouse.”
She told deputies the man acted more like a “pervert” than a robber and she feared he was waiting for the right moment to “either hit her or rape her.” Employees at the clubhouse helped rescue Pagan from the situation — and they were all too familiar with the suspect, a notorious Saturnia Lakes resident named Carmine Marceno Sr.
A raft of never-before-seen police reports obtained by the Florida Trident via a public records request portray Marceno Sr., who was then 67, as a stalker, bully, and thief who routinely roamed Saturnia in his signature sweat pants terrorizing his neighbors.
Aptly nicknamed “Butch,” Marceno Sr. was accused over a 15-year period of threatening neighbors, creeping after underage girls and women, strong-arming Saturnia HOA board elections, impersonating a law enforcement officer, stealing from neighbors, and other alleged crimes.
Despite the complaints, Marceno Sr. was never formally charged with any crime, prompting some to question if he benefitted from a very powerful family relation — his son and spitting image, Carmine Marceno Jr., the Lee County sheriff who previously served as a Collier deputy.
“I think so, everybody thinks so,” said former Saturnia resident Michael Gervino, who had an epic run-in with the elder Marceno in 2021. “Who gets away with that kind of shit year after year? If it was me and you, we would have been locked up. Everyone knows his son’s got all kinds of connections.”
Marceno Sr. played a key role in the FBI investigation of an alleged kickback scheme that rocked Lee County. A friend of both father and son, Ken Romano, alleged the sheriff instructed him to divert $1,700 per month to Marceno Sr. from his LCSO consulting contract to make payments on a white Mercedes Benz the sheriff had gifted his father.
After more than a year of investigation and the seating of a federal grand jury, the case was dropped this past November after the Trump administration fired the U.S. Attorney overseeing the Middle District of Florida as well as the federal prosecutor directly in charge of the case for reasons unrelated to the sheriff.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, however, explicitly left the door open for other law enforcement agencies to pick up the investigation, and the case is now the subject of a state criminal complaint and numerous complaints made with the Florida Ethics Commission.
Any potential investigation however will be missing a very important witness: Marceno Sr. died in December 2024, at the height of the investigation. While the man called Butch lived loudly, he left the world silently, with no obituary or even a death notice.
The story told in police reports about Marceno Sr. is one filled with aggressive and predatory behavior done with seeming impunity. But on at least two occasions, Collier sheriff’s deputies did file criminal warrants against him, including the Pagan stalking case.
Both warrants, however, were rejected by a State Attorney’s Office run by Amira Fox, who happens to be one of his son’s closest professional and political allies, begging the question: Was justice ever served?
“My son’s a deputy”
Collier deputies reported that even as they were interviewing Pagan at her home, they spotted Marceno Sr. repeatedly driving by in his white BMW. And Pagan told them she wanted to press charges against him for stalking her.
When questioned by Det. Scott Peterson, Butch claimed he wasn’t following Pagan but instead was only “driving around to keep an eye on things.” He said he was a former member of Saturnia Lakes HOA board and blamed Pagan’s complaint on other board members who didn’t like him.
On May 25, 2017, Peterson filed a warrant to charge Marceno Sr. with misdemeanor stalking in the Pagan case, with a maximum penalty of one year in jail. “The case will remain open while under review by the State Attorney’s Office,” Peterson wrote in his report.
Then serving as No. 2 at the SAO was Chief Assistant State Attorney Amira Fox. In that position Fox ran the day-to-day operations of the 20th Judicial Circuit, which includes both Collier and Lee counties. Fox had already started her ultimately successful run for state attorney at the time with the strong support of Marceno Jr., who was then undersheriff, or second-in-command, at LCSO.
Such a close professional and political relationship between the sheriff and the then second-in-command at the SAO might seem to call for a recusal by the 20th Judicial Circuit to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the State Attorney’s Office retained jurisdiction and rejected the stalking warrant for Marceno Sr. on July 6, 2017.
Just six days later, on July 12, Marceno Jr. personally contributed $4,000 to Fox’s political PAC and reportedly raised thousands of dollars more for her campaign at the time.
Four years after the stalking case was rejected, Butch was at the center of another bizarre and disturbing incident at a Pinch-A-Penny pool supplies store in Naples involving a 26-year-old employee named Kristen George.
While Marceno Sr. was speaking with George on the sales floor, he suddenly slapped her in the face and repeatedly patted her arm, according to sheriff’s reports.
The incident was caught on store cameras and George wanted to press charges for the slap, which deputies described as “not forceful enough to warrant an injury or concern for her well-being but it did make her feel very uncomfortable.”
Collier County Sheriff’s Deputy Darrel Kehne submitted a warrant with the State Attorney’s Office to charge Marceno Sr. with misdemeanor battery.
By this time, Fox and Marceno were an even more powerful duo in Lee County, both now the No. 1’s at their respective agencies. The pair often appeared together at political events and that same year, Marceno’s political PAC, Friends of Carmine Marceno, contributed another $2,000 to Fox’s campaign.
And again, the State Attorney’s Office rejected the warrant, allowing Marceno Sr. to avoid the inside of a courtroom. Fox has not responded to detailed questions emailed to her office by the Trident.
Attorney and judicial watchdog Bill Gelin, who runs the JAABlog website in neighboring Broward County, said the circumstances of the battery case called out for a recusal.
“These are both very powerful people and anything involving themselves or a family member they should immediately kick to another jurisdiction where no one can claim an appearance of a conflict or impropriety,” Gelin said. “It’s the sheriff’s father. Why not send it out and walk away from it?”
Fox did in fact recuse herself from a case tangentially involving the sheriff last year, citing their “professional relationship.” The case involved the sheriff’s former friend-turned-accuser Romano, who was the subject of an investigation unrelated to the federal corruption probe. Because he’d made allegations against the sheriff, she punted the case over to the 12th Judicial Circuit.
“[T]o avoid a conflict of interest or an appearance of impropriety, [Fox] has voluntarily disqualified herself and has requested the executive assignment of another State Attorney regarding the investigation and prosecution of this case and all related matters regarding Kenneth Romano,” read Gov. Ron DeSantis’s executive order executing the change of venue.
Those are just two of a total of 11 criminal allegations made against Marceno Sr. in Collier County between the years 2006 and 2021.
His son, who left CCSO for Lee County in 2013, indirectly pops up in several of the complaints, including one from 2011 alleging the elder Marceno impersonated a police officer during a standoff with another driver in a 7-Eleven parking lot.
The complainant, Jeff Vicarella, told deputies that as he was exiting the convenience store parking lot, Marceno Sr., driving the wrong way, blocked him and loudly demanded Vicarella move out of his way.
“Jeff told Carmine that he was going the wrong way and he is not moving,” the report states. “Jeff then put his car in park and crossed his arms. Carmine then pulled out a badge and said, ‘How do you know I’m not on a mission.’”
When Vicarella called police, Marceno Sr. drove off. Deputies obtained sworn statements from Vicarella as well as two witnesses who confirmed his story.
Questioned later, Marceno Sr. admitted flashing the badge, which had the words “‘deputy’s father’ or something to that effect inscribed upon it,” and said he told Vicarella his son was a deputy.
Marceno Sr. “stated that as the other person was yelling at him and threatening to call the ‘cops,’ he told him to go ahead and call, as his son was a deputy, and that was where the badge came into play.”
The sheriff’s office determined no crime had been committed because Marceno Sr. never made a direct order and Vicarella was never in fear during the altercation.
Sheriff Marceno didn’t respond to a detailed email requesting comment for this story. Several sources who’ve had close associations with Marceno Jr. have told the Trident that while he always defended and remained loyal to his father, he was at times frustrated with him. They say too that the younger Marceno’s own behavior has definitely been strongly influenced by the example of his father to the sheriff’s own detriment.
While Marceno Jr. has publicly decried “moral decay” in society, he’s also widely been linked not only to the corruption allegations but also to poor personal behavior, including rampant gambling and womanizing, glimpses of which have been caught on tape. In 2018, he survived a scandal involving a crime victim named Deanna Williams whom he allegedly pursued and impregnated before pressuring her to have an abortion.
The Bronx’s ‘Bus Stop Butch’
Prior to moving to southwest Florida in the late 90s, Marceno Sr., long divorced from his son’s mother, worked in the car business, according to a former close friend of his in the Bronx, where Butch grew up and intermittently lived over the course of his adulthood.
“He could schmooze anybody,” said the friend, who spoke anonymously due to fear of repercussions from law enforcement. “The man could sell cars. He could move metal like nobody’s business.”
Even then Marceno Sr. had a reputation for roaming the streets for women, said the friend, including trying to pick them up at bus stops, a tactic that earned him the nickname “Bus Stop Butch.”
The friendship ended, said the source, when he realized Butch was a thief.
“He stole from me,” said the friend. “He’d take anything that wasn’t nailed down. It was his nature. He lived to cause anguish in everybody’s life. He got enjoyment out of causing people pain.”
After Butch moved to Collier County in the late 1990s, he opened a tanning salon called Island Tan of Naples in 2002. His former New York friend called it a “brilliant” move.
“Think about it, this is a guy who spent most of his time going out and trying to find women,” he said. “Now he opened a business where they would come to him.”
Partnering with him at the salon was his son, the future sheriff, who listed Island Tan as his place of employment when he applied to become a Collier County sheriff’s deputy in late 2002. That same year Butch married Marinella Parone, eighteen years his junior and a fellow New Yorker.
The first of the police complaints against Marceno Sr. was registered at the tanning salon. On April 2, 2006, a 16-year-old girl named Megan Singletary walked into Island Tan of Naples for a spray tan. Singletary told deputies she’d scheduled an appointment with a female employee on the phone and believed it would be a female who would be giving her the tan. But inside the store she was met with Butch.
According to sheriff’s reports, Marceno Sr., then 56-years-old, told Singletary to go into a nearby room and made a point that she should get completely naked to avoid tan lines and that a female employee would be there shortly.
But it was Marceno Sr. who later opened the door to the room where the high school student was nude. He then tried to place a protective heart-shaped sticker on her genitals, she alleged.
“Megan swiped his hand away, grabbed the sticker, and placed it on her own body,” wrote Det. Frank Pilarski in his report. “Carmine began spraying the tan on Megan’s body.”
After she returned home, Singletary and her mother called the sheriff’s office. Marceno Sr. admitted to Pilarski he’d gone into the room and sprayed the girl.
“Carmine said it was normal business at the Island Tan for him to spray either sex,” Pilarski wrote. “Carmine stated his wife does the same. Carmine stated that a person can refuse service if they don’t want that person to spray the tan on them.”
Pilarski determined that because Marceno Sr. hadn’t touched the girl, no crime had been committed.
The neighborhood ‘bully’
On June 5, 2018, Collier County Sheriff’s Corporal R. Williams responded to the Saturnia Lakes clubhouse, where property manager Ashley Ortiz was waiting with complaints about the man called Butch.
“She advises he harasses the neighbors, the lawn maintenance personnel and the office staff,” Williams wrote in his report. “This harassment includes following people around the neighborhood, filming them as they exercise and threatening lawn service people with deportation.”
While threatening the lawn crew, Marceno Sr., a staunch Republican, would drop Marceno Jr.’s name, threatening “to use his son’s position with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office to get the illegals deported,” according to the report.
A witness in the ensuing investigation was resident Jane Biagini, who claimed Marceno Sr. had followed her around the neighborhood in his car at “a walker’s pace.” She told Cpl. Williams she suspected he was trying to intimidate her for backing an opposing candidate in an upcoming HOA election.
Butch followed her multiple times over the course of three or four weeks, she said, scaring her to the point that she stopped leaving the house alone. During what she called the “most aggressive encounter,” Marceno asked her to “drop out of the upcoming election,” warning “people that don’t listen to him typically end up in the trunks of cars,” deputies reported.
Biagini said the pressure and fear was so great she did as Butch demanded and ended her involvement in HOA board politics, upon which the harassment ended.
In 2012, resident Rod Gustafson reported to Collier deputies that Marceno Sr. threatened his life numerous times over another board dispute. Gustafson, a retired police officer from Milwaukee, recounted to deputies the following toxic tirade delivered by a shirtless Butch while berating him in his sweatpants:
“If you ever mention my f–king name at a board meeting again, you’re done! I’ll come up behind you, and you’ll be done, and you will never see it coming. You have no f–king idea what I can do to you! I’m not afraid of nothing. I don’t f–king care what happens to me. You don’t think I’ve been in handcuffs before? I’ve been handcuffed many times. I will get you. You can’t stop me. I’m also going to tell everyone in the community you’re a thief, a liar, and that you tow everyone’s vehicles. You were a rinky-dink cop in Disneyland up north, and I’m not afraid of the police. … I will ruin you.”
Gustafson asked Marceno Sr. why he was so “bitter” and suggested he “follow the example” of his son.
“You leave my son out of this … I’m going to get you,” Butch allegedly countered as he stabbed his right index finger at Gustafson’s face. “You’re not safe, because you will never know when I’m coming.”
Gustafson also said he suspected Marceno Sr. had dumped brake fluid on his car, causing $1,700 in damage.
In March of 2014, a former Saturnia Lakes HOA board president named Nan Hoepfl called deputies to report that Marceno Sr. had “bullied and harassed” her for two years. Again she reported he would follow her in his car and had recently tried to block her from leaving the clubhouse. She said he took pictures of the homes of board members, including her own, and had pointed his finger at her head like a gun and pretended to pull the trigger.
“Mrs. Hoepfl advises that she does not feel safe in her own community,” wrote Cpl. Robert Capizzi in his report.
“I’m single and retired to Florida to enjoy life, not to be threatened with bullying and [stalking],” she wrote. “… People like this should be dealt with by the law, and with a heavy hand.”
The same year, another Saturnia Lakes property manager, Valarie Gutterridge, reported to deputies she was scared of Marceno Sr. as well. She told deputies he came into the clubhouse with another man “looking for ballots” for the upcoming election. When Gutterridge told them ballots had to be picked up by individual residents who were voting, both men became “enraged” and began screaming at her, disrupting the office.
Again, deputies determined the behavior didn’t cross the legal line.
Alleged ‘mastermind’ walks
When Michael and Nena Gervino moved into a house on Windamere Lane in Saturnia Lakes in January 2021, they imagined it would be the perfect place to spend their golden years.
Their home was a block away from Marceno Sr., with whom they had mutual friends in their native New York. While preparing to move, they provided Butch the code to their garage and keys to look after the property.
“I’d been told to be careful because he’s a crook,” Gervino told the Trident. “But he was so nice to me. He was acting like he was my best friend. He said, ‘I’m the king of Naples. Nobody lets me pay for nothing because everybody loves me.’ He bragged about his son’s $200,000 salary and acted like he had all the money in the world.”
Marinella Marceno also became friends with his wife.
“She said, ‘I don’t have friends here. I’m so happy you moved here,’” Gervino recalled. “She would say, ‘I love you, you’re my best friend.’”
But soon Gervino said he realized Butch was “hated by everyone.”
“He was a big mouth bully,” he said. “People were afraid of him because he was big and he was ugly and he was scary and people just wanted to get away from him.”
As it was dawning on Gervino that his new friend was a problem, his wife began noticing money missing from her purse, according to sheriff’s reports.
First it was $65, then it was hundred dollar bills. The couple began to suspect that while they were on their morning jogs, Marceno Sr. and his wife were stealing the money.
“He used to go around the circle when we went jogging and he would watch us and then call his wife and say, ‘Go in the house,’” said Gervino.
With a Ring camera and bills marked “God loves you,” the couple obtained evidence of the ploy and reported the crime at a sheriff’s substation on April 29, 2021, prompting an investigation.
The following day the situation exploded. According to sheriff’s reports, Marceno Sr. visited the couple at their home and when he started bragging about how much money he was spending on furniture, Gervino became “furious” and told Butch they had caught him stealing from them.
The ensuing yelling match was so loud neighbors called the sheriff’s office. Marinella Marceno ultimately admitted to stealing the money, said Gervino, and was later charged with burglary and larceny.
“The wife turned around and said, ‘No, [Marceno Sr.] had nothing to do with it, I did it all alone,’” said Gervino. “I told the cops he was the mastermind. He’s the one who told her to do it. He was the watchdog.”
Despite those protestations, Butch avoided criminal charges once again. Gervino meanwhile hoped to see his wife do jail time. “She said it was a mistake going into my house six times and getting into my [wife’s] pocketbook, it was all a mistake,” he said. “That’s not a mistake.”
Marinella Marceno instead took a plea deal that involved probation and payment of restitution, with adjudication withheld, meaning it doesn’t count as a conviction on her record. Because adjudication was withheld and it was her first offense, the case was eligible to be sealed — and it was sealed in early 2024, obscuring the details of the theft and its resolution.
Records posted on the legal data website UniCourt indicate a plea deal was struck in January 2022 requiring Marinella to pay the court $2,076 a month later, roughly $1,200 of which Gervino said he received in restitution. She was also given four years probation, but the judge terminated her probation in early 2024 at the behest of her attorney, Donald Day, court records show.
Day, a former prosecutor, has longstanding ties to Marceno Jr., including serving as his personal attorney during the recent FBI investigation. A message left with Day’s law firm seeking comment from both the lawyer and his former client Marinella Marceno was not returned.
Gervino said when he received notice from the court of both the early termination of probation and case sealing, it felt like a slap in the face, but also wasn’t surprising considering the sway of the Marceno name.
“How do you get away with all of that?” he asked. “It’s unbelievable.”
About the Author: Bob Norman is a senior editor for the Florida Trident. His work as an investigative reporter has won dozens of awards and led to criminal charges and the removal of several corrupt public officials. He can be reached at norman@flcga.org. The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.
