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Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigns from office

Governor Rick Scott announced early Wednesday the resignation of his chief lieutenant

Amid fallout from an investigation into Internet gambling cafes, Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll has resigned from office, according to Governor Rick Scott.  Her resignation was announced early Wednesday morning by Scott.

“Effective immediately, I hereby resign the Office of Lieutenant Governor of the State of Florida. It has been an honor to have served the State of Florida in this capacity,” stated Carroll’s two-sentence letter dated Tuesday.

According to the governor’s chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, the Lt. Governor’s resignation was spurred by a federal investigation into Allied Veterans of the World, a company that runs Internet cafes.

“Individuals were arrested [Tuesday] for racketeering and money laundering charges in connection with Allied Veterans of the World’s illegal gambling companies,”  indicated Hollingsworth, in a prepared statement early Wednesday.

“Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll consulted for Allied Veterans while serving as a member of the Florida House of Representatives in 2009 and 2010. She was interviewed by Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers [Tuesday] regarding her work with the company. Lt. Gov. Carroll resigned in an effort to keep her former affiliation with the company from distracting from the administration’s important work on behalf of Florida families. She made the right decision for the state and her family.”

Officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement interviewed Carroll on Tuesday about her alleged ties to Allied Veterans of the World.  Her ties to the company were first questioned when she served in the Florida Legislature and proposed a bill that would benefit Internet cafes.

On Tuesday, federal law enforcement arrested officials from Allied on racketeering charges along with a Jacksonville police union chief  in connection with allegations that they made $290 million supplying illegal gambling software in Florida and claiming the games’ proceeds would benefit a veterans group.

Governor Rick Scott is expected to hold a press conference Wednesday at 3 p.m. to discuss the resignation.

Officials will also hold a 2:30 p.m. press conference in Orlando to address the status of a joint investigation into the alleged illegal activities of Allied Veterans of the World.  Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson and other law enforcement are expected to participate.

COMMENTS

  • midwestconservative

    This Federal investigation doesn’t seem to have been harmed by the sequester,
    me thinks Obama is looking at Florida as a prime target for Californication

  • Martin Knight

    This is absolutely horrible.

  • redwallet

    I hope Scott doesn’t get hurt by this. Scott would be one of the greatest governors of our time if he didn’t keep unnecessarily tripping himself up.

    • sudomakeme

      Yeah he’s doing a bang-up job about the Medicare expansion.

  • mkeprof

    It is frustrating how we are giving away our advantage in FL. FL has gone blue twice, has one blue senator who was re-elected handily. We are on the verge of losing FL for the long haul – along with VA. Without VA and FL – we have no shot at the WH. All this shooting ourselves in the foot has to stop!

    • sudomakeme

      I still can’t comprehend HOW though. Going back to the Nov 2012 election, let’s play a game of Let’s Pretend and say there was no fraud. How did it happen? I was shocked seeing how Florida played out on election night. (And if it was fraud, how do we beat that? We can’t stop it, DoJ won’t even listen to us other than to scream about ID’s being racist.)

      I live in the suburbs of one of the urban blue blobs on the Florida election map and not a soul I know was for Obama. Almost no Obama/Biden bumper stickers, just a handful (compared to a sea of them in 2008). Was it the older people who were scared bleepless by Obama’s ads about Medicare (I saw those huge flyers AARP sent around, if I was a low information elderly person who wouldn’t think to check if they were factual, I’d be scared too!)? Hispanics bucking racial trends and voting against the party of one of their own because they saw what was coming down the pike with this administration’s immigration lack-of-enforcement? And if so, are there so many retired folks and hispanics here that drowned out everyone else?