Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed Thursday in Orlando he has the power to remove Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno from office if he sees fit.
“If you conduct yourself in a way that triggers my constitutional obligations to suspend you, I will do it. I will follow through with that,” DeSantis warned when he was asked to respond to calls from a Lee County Republican State Committeeman to remove the sheriff from office.
It’s the first time since the FBI investigation into the sheriff that the governor has addressed the matter, as another elected official expressed concerns over the allegations of money laundering lodged against Marceno.
Republican State Committeewoman Tara Jenner called the allegations against the sheriff concerning. Her comments come one day after Republican State Committeeman Mick Peters asked the governor to remove Marceno pending the outcome of the FBI investigation.
“If you read Florida's constitution, the governor has the constitutional authority to suspend elected officials at the county level based on a number of criteria: misfeasance, malfeasance, incompetence, neglect of duty, drunkenness. There may be another one or two, but those are the main ones, and when a public official triggers those, they only need to trigger one of it. I won't hesitate to act,” DeSantis continued.
The warning from the governor came after Jenner spoke out.
“I've raised concerns about this. I am concerned about the allegations, there is no question about that. But does it warrant a knee-jerk reaction? That's another concern,” Jenner said.
However, Jenner isn't calling for the sheriff to resign or be removed.
“Do I think it's an emergency we need to do an immediate reaction on? No,” she stated.
Her colleague Peters disagreed.
“I believe the appearance of impropriety is overwhelming and that our sheriff should be held to a higher standard than ourselves,” Peters responded.
It comes as a federal grand jury hears evidence the FBI has collected against the sheriff on allegations of money laundering. Peters sent a letter to the governor, and state and local lawmakers are calling for the sheriff to be removed.
Peters was asked what if the grand jury returns a no-bill and no charges are filed against the sheriff.
“What I've seen is already a demonstrative level of inappropriate conduct,” Peters responded.
When asked if any lawmakers other than State Sen. Jonathan Martin responded to his letter to remove Marceno, Peters said no, and when asked if that surprised him, he responded yes.
Sheriff Marceno’s office responded Thursday by saying, “Guesses and speculations we see in the media aside, the sheriff looks forward to serving the great residents of Lee County for the term just started.”
Just a week ago, Marceno announced on Facebook that he was subpoenaed by the FBI and turned over the documents they requested, but he did not say what those documents were.
The sheriff has not answered any questions from the media about the allegations against him. He has not been charged with a crime.