The following statement was released by\u00a0Rick Oppenheim, APR, CPRC<\/strong>
\nRB Oppenheim Associates<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>on behalf of former Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll<\/p>\n

A STATEMENT FROM FORMER LT. GOVERNOR JENNIFER CARROLL<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday, March 18, 2013, the group Integrity Florida conducted a news conference on proposed ethics legislation, led by the organization\u2019s executive director, Dan Krassner. Mr. Krassner stated that Integrity Florida\u2019s mission is to \u201cpromote integrity in government and expose public corruption.\u201d The news conference then advocated for legislation intended to strengthen Florida\u2019s ethics laws.<\/p>\n

I support the legislation for which Integrity Florida is advocating. I agree that public officials should take financial disclosure very seriously, take greater care in completing financial disclosure forms, suffer penalties for errors, omissions and inaccuracies and that the Ethics Commission should be given greater enforcement powers.<\/p>\n

I admit that I should have taken greater care with filling out my own financial disclosure forms from the past five-to-10 years and apologize for any confusion or concern caused by alleged inconsistencies.<\/p>\n

However, I also want to emphasize that I moved quickly to clear up errors on those forms. Yes, I made mistakes, including putting a comma in the wrong place,\u00a0not explaining (which was not\u00a0a requirement of the Commission on Ethics) that a jump in net worth from one year to the next was the result of an inheritance following the death of my parents and included jointly owned assets and mortgages (which were owned by my husband and his assets were not subject to reporting \u2013 though they were added to an amended form). In 2010, the Governor’s campaign lawyer, Trevor Potter, even reviewed my financials,\u00a0noted all line items and expressed\u00a0no concerns with my forms which detailed how things were accounted for.<\/p>\n

Yes, I agree with Mr. Krassner that some of my financial disclosure forms were \u201csloppy at best,\u201d but it is incredible that he indicts me by using the term \u201cpotentially inaccurate.\u201d Potentially? Mr. Krassner said that we need to strengthen the Ethics Commission so they can \u201cask questions long before we have resignations or corruption probes.\u201d Corruption probes?<\/p>\n

Mr. Krassner uses leading questions and suggestive language to hint at ethical lapses and corrupt intent. That is patently absurd.<\/p>\n

I find it offensive, degrading and objectionable that Mr. Krassner suggests that, because of how I filled out these forms five-to-10 years ago, I should now be considered the \u201cposter child\u201d for ethics reform and corruption. My resignation last week as lieutenant governor had absolutely no connection to that.<\/p>\n

Yes, I am guilty of being \u201csloppy\u201d with those forms\u00a0and\u00a0making errors (that I quickly corrected). But, I am most certainly NOT guilty of ethics violations or corruption. No charges have ever been filed against me, and no one has even alleged anything to that effect \u2013 until Mr. Krassner\u2019s outlandish, irresponsible and sensational remarks yesterday. Why hasn\u2019t Mr. Krassner looked at\u00a0Members new worth forms that indicate zero net worth?\u00a0 Now,\u00a0in my opinion,\u00a0that would be grounds for ethics violation.<\/p>\n

On other points made during his press conference, he should be applauded and supported. But, on the matter of citing me as an example of what is wrong in Florida with regard to ethics and corruption, Mr. Krassner should be ashamed of himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following statement was released by\u00a0Rick Oppenheim, APR, CPRC RB Oppenheim Associates\u00a0on behalf of former Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll A STATEMENT FROM FORMER LT. GOVERNOR JENNIFER CARROLL On Monday, March 18, 2013, the group Integrity Florida conducted a news conference on proposed ethics legislation, led by the organization\u2019s executive director, Dan Krassner. Mr. Krassner stated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14,58,66,1,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17674"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17676,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17674\/revisions\/17676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}