Florida’s history-making Republican Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll, the first African American to be elected to statewide office in Florida, resigned in embarrassment Tuesday night because a consulting firm she owned is embroiled in a massive illegal gambling conspiracy connected to the arrests of at least 57 people in six states.
While Carroll was not arrested, she was questioned by law-enforcement authorities and decided to quit “to keep her former affiliation with the company from distracting from the administration’s important work on behalf of Florida families,” according to Gov. Rick Scott’s chief of staff.
A team of federal, Florida and local law-enforcement officials said yesterday that they had executed arrest warrants for 57 people in Florida, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. The arrests involve the Internet sweepstakes café nonprofit, Allied Veterans of the World, and its executives.
Both the state House and Senate have scheduled committee meetings Friday and Monday, respectively, to discuss a complete ban on Internet sweepstakes cafes. Scott, who has called for the cafes to be banned before, said Wednesday “everything is on the table.”
“I think with this news, everything’s on the table. I look forward to working with the House and the Senate to review this, but I think that issue (a statewide ban) is on the table,” Scott said.
Last year, after the House voted to ban the cafés, which many call “storefront casinos,” the Senate didn’t go along, preferring instead to regulate them.
When Carroll was a member of the state Legislature in 2009 and 2010, her firm consulted for the St. Augustine-based operator of Internet cafes. After becoming the first black Republican woman elected to the Florida House in 2003, Carroll was chosen by Scott to be his running mate in 2010. Before she was elected to the House, she was a 20-year Navy veteran who rose to lieutenant commander before retiring.
Carroll had been chosen by Scott to chair a committee that was examining the state gun laws, including the controversial “stand your ground” statute that George Zimmerman is using to fight murder charges after killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year. But after her committee looked into the law, it recommended only cosmetic changes, keeping the major elements intact.
