“Trump’s Sheriff”? Facing federal investigation, Lee County’s Marceno and his allies make clear appeal to the president 

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno elicited a collective gasp across Southwest Florida when he floated the idea of running for Congress. 

“Only in Florida,” read one of hundreds of Facebook responses to the news. 

“He needs to be in jail!!!” one wrote. 

“Isn’t he under investigation?” chimed in another. 

The short answer is yes. Marceno is under investigation by a federal grand jury after a former close associate and gambling buddy, Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano, alleged (with documentation) the sheriff accepted more than $100,000 in unreported gifts and provided Romano with a fraudulent LCSO consulting contract in 2022 to facilitate kickbacks to Marceno’s father for a luxury car. 

The sheriff has maintained media silence on the allegations, instead opting to issue a statement claiming the allegations are untrue and politically motivated. In January he admitted he’d turned over unspecified records to the FBI in response to the investigation. 

So it’s no wonder the March 27 announcement on the conservative website Florida’s Voice that Marceno is considering a run for Congress was met with incredulity from some voters. According to his political consultant, Anthony Pedicini, Marceno is eying the Congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who is running as President Donald Trump’s pick for governor. 

The only quote attributed to the sheriff, however,  didn’t specifically mention Congress – instead it was about Trump. 

“I love President Trump and his agenda,” Marceno told the publication. “Anything is possible and who knows what the future holds.”

Shortly after the announcement, close Marceno friend and political ally Tim Guerrette – whose unsuccessful 2024 campaign for Collier County elections supervisor received $51,000 from the sheriff’s PAC – called Marceno “Trump’s Sheriff and next U.S. Congressman” on Facebook and linked to a “FL Gulf News” post on Substack claiming Trump officials were “watching the situation closely.” 

The post quoted a “senior Trump political advisor” as saying Marceno is “100 percent America First” and has “law-and-order credentials, the loyalty to the president, and the guts to stand up to the radical left.” It reads like an ad aimed straight at the Trump Administration for an endorsement. 

Cindy Banyai, a Democratic politician who was defeated by Donalds in her bid for the same seat two years ago, said she believes Marceno’s announcement was aimed at an audience of one —Donald Trump — who has the power to kill the federal investigation and endorse a potential candidacy. 

“It’s a strategic move to put him in a position to get out of the FBI investigation,” said Banyai, now a candidate for the vacant Florida House District 78 seat in Fort Myers.

A request with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office communications office for an interview with Marceno, who has yet to field questions from the media regarding the investigation, went unfulfilled.  

Will Trump “wave his wand”?

Though direct tampering by U.S. presidents in federal criminal cases has formerly been considered taboo, many legal experts have argued that the new administration’s overtly political dismissal of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ federal corruption case – with the stated purpose of having Adams carry out the president’s deportation initiatives – shows Trump isn’t shy about using that power.

Danielle Sassoon, Trump’s own appointee as acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned in protest of the dismissal of the Adams case, writing she was confident of Adams’ guilt and calling the killing of the case a politically motivated “quid pro quo.” Trump has also overseen an unprecedented purge of prosecutors and FBI agents in an apparent bid to fill the agencies with loyalists. 

“I think [Trump] would absolutely wave his wand and make [the Marceno investigation] go away,” said Banyai. “But only if it was something he believed would be beneficial to him politically.”

When reached by phone, Guerrette would only say he believes the sheriff – whose Friends of Carmine Marceno PAC donated to Guerette’s unsuccessful 2024 campaign for Collier County supervisor of elections – would make a great congressman. He said he knows “nothing” about the federal investigation or any of the allegations against the sheriff. 

“I don’t get involved in stuff I have no business being involved in,” Guerrette told the Florida Trident.

“Marceno will win at the ballot box” 

The author of the Substack posted by Guerrette, a self-styled reporter named Richard Luthmann, told the Florida Trident he envisions an opportunity for Trump – as well as his Attorney General Pam Bondi – to end the federal investigation into Marceno. 

“I can see a very good scenario where the thing just fizzles out,” Luthmann said of the Marceno investigation. “They might make the political move to say the investigation has been closed to narrow down that [Congressional] field and make Carmine the candidate. We saw it before with Eric Adams.”

He said Trump ultimately could decide that Marceno is the surest bet to win the Congressional race and fight for the president in the Capitol.  

“You know how popular Carmine is,” Luthmann said. “You got a guy that unless they find him with a live boy or a dead girl, Marceno will win at the ballot box.”  

Luthmann said that while he’s spoken with Marceno in the past, he hasn’t discussed a potential Congressional run with him. He said he sees what he called a “lawfare” correlation between Trump – who faced four separate criminal indictments and was convicted of 34 felonies prior to his re-election – and the sheriff. 

Luthmann, an associate of long-time Trump advisor (and pardoned felon) Roger Stone, has had some epic battles with the law himself. A disbarred attorney who formerly practiced in Staten Island, he was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison after being convicted of fraud and extortion.

According to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, Luthmann and his organized crime-associated partners sold fake scrap metal to Chinese firms through a series of shell companies (the “president” of one was a blind panhandler Luthmann allegedly found on the sidewalk outside his law firm). At one point, a business partner who owed Luthmann money was shaken down at gunpoint in his law office. While Luthmann wasn’t present for the shakedown, he admitted complicity in the crime while making a guilty plea, according to published media reports at the time.

The feds also alleged Luthmann, whom The New York Times dubbed Staten Island’s “version of a Nixonian dirty trickster,” tried to hire his partners to kill a local Democratic Party official and to physically harm another. (The Staten Island Advance newspaper documented the feds’ findings in detail here). In addition to the federal crimes, Luthmann was also convicted of creating fake Facebook pages using the names of actual political candidates to influence elections. 

At sentencing, his attorney said Luthmann had been using cocaine and suffering from alcoholism and an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, according to coverage in the New York Post.  Luthmann now says he was the victim of corrupt prosecutors and federal agents and that as he speaks “to a lot of people in Trump’s world” he hopes a pardon is “on the horizon.” 

“My case was the blueprint for the Trump case in New York,” he claimed.

With time served, Luthmann was released from prison in 2021 and moved to Southwest Florida, where he said his grandparents have lived since the 1980s. He said he no longer drinks or does drugs and believes the bipolar diagnosis was bogus. He maintains some of the allegations against him were false, but says he welcomes “credit” for his guilt.

“If they are saying I get no credit for my innocence, then I want credit for my guilt,” he said before adding with a laugh: “If they’re saying that I’m the most evil person in the world, I want it on my tombstone.”

As for Marceno, Luthmann said he just wants to see him succeed because he’s a “good fit” for Florida. 

“I’m a religious guy and they say God sends not the hero that you want but the hero that you need,” he said. “Marceno is the hero we need. You could say the same thing about Trump. He’s not perfect, he’s not an angel, but he’s the guy that can get the job done.”

About the Author: Trident senior editor Bob Norman is an award-winning journalist who has investigated crime and corruption in the state for three decades. He can be reached at norman@flcga.org.