Mary McCarty Settlement: Guilty Plea, Prison, and Pardon

The Mary McCarty case ended with the former Palm Beach County commissioner pleading guilty in 2009 to honest services fraud, serving about 21 months of a 42-month federal prison sentence, paying six-figure forfeitures and fines alongside her husband, and receiving a full pardon from President Donald Trump on December 23, 2020.¹

McCarty had served five terms on the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners after first winning election in 1990, and also chaired the county’s Republican Party.² She resigned during her fifth term in 2009 as the federal case against her closed in.³

What She Was Accused of Doing

Prosecutors described two overlapping schemes. McCarty voted on municipal bond deals that steered underwriting business to her husband, Kevin McCarty, a bond underwriter. She also accepted thousands of dollars in free and discounted luxury hotel rooms from a developer bidding on a $100 million county convention-center hotel project, then used her position to help that developer win the contract.⁴

According to the federal charging document, she either failed to file required financial disclosure reports or filed false and incomplete ones to hide those interests from the public.⁵

The Guilty Plea and Sentence

McCarty pleaded guilty to a single count of mail and wire fraud conspiracy to deprive the citizens of Palm Beach County of their intangible right to her honest services.⁵ Her attorney, David Bogenschutz, said she contested some of the government’s allegations and would not admit to everything prosecutors had initially claimed; there was no formal sentencing agreement in place at the plea.⁶

On June 4, 2009, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks sentenced her to 42 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, and she was remanded to custody the same day.⁵ She was fined $100,000.⁷

The financial hit didn’t stop at the fine. Mary and Kevin McCarty were jointly ordered to forfeit $272,000 in ill-gotten gains and were fined a combined $105,000.⁸ Prosecutors had alleged the couple collectively received roughly $300,000 from Mary McCarty’s official votes.⁶ The Coastal Star reported the couple paid a combined $250,000 in restitution.⁹ By 2011, McCarty said she and Kevin had accumulated more than $700,000 in debt.¹⁰

Kevin McCarty, who had also chaired the South Florida Water Management District, pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony for failing to report his wife’s crimes and was sentenced to eight months.⁸⁹ He died in 2018.²

How Much Time She Actually Served

McCarty spent time in the Palm Beach County Jail in solitary confinement, then five weeks at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, before being moved to a low-security federal camp in Texas. There she completed a nine-month drug treatment program that cut 14 months off her sentence.⁴

She was released on March 24, 2011, after roughly 21 months in custody, and transitioned to a Salvation Army halfway house in West Palm Beach with weekend leave, working at minimum wage doing administrative tasks for a Delray Beach attorney.¹⁰

The 2020 Presidential Pardon

Trump granted McCarty a full pardon on December 23, 2020. The White House statement noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had since “interpreted that statute more narrowly, meaning that Ms. McCarty’s conduct might not be criminally prosecuted today.”¹

McCarty herself had argued for years that the June 2010 Supreme Court decision narrowing honest services fraud would have blocked her prosecution had it come earlier, and she said a member of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in West Palm Beach had told her husband the same thing, though she declined to name the person.¹¹ Public supporters of the pardon included former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, who called the prosecution “judicial overkill.” Peter Cruise, chairman of the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics, said she had “paid very heavily” and that the pardon recognized her post-prison work.² Her brother, Brian Ballard, is a Republican fundraiser and lobbyist with ties to Trump.¹²

What She Did After Prison

McCarty and Kevin launched Cypress Consulting, a management consulting firm.¹¹ She also started Mary McCarty Consulting, which she described as offering “compassionate coaching for incarceration preparedness” for people facing the federal justice system. She said she had no interest in running for office again and instead advocated for policies reducing barriers for people with felony convictions, including removing felony-disclosure questions from initial job applications and restoring occupational licensing for former inmates.¹³

1
Trump White House Archives. Statement From the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency
2
Palm Beach Post. Ex-Commissioner Mary McCarty, Boca’s James Batmasian Pardoned by Trump
3
Florida Trend. Mary McCarty’s Fall From Grace
4
WPBF. Former County Commissioner Describes Life in Federal Prison
5
FBI Archives. Former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty Sentenced
6
Sun-Sentinel. Date Set for McCarty Plea
7
WFLX. Former Commissioner Starts Serving Corruption Sentence
8
Palm Beach Post. Mary McCarty Returns to Palm Beach County
9
The Coastal Star. Along the Coast: McCarty, Batmasian Receive Trump Pardons
10
The Coastal Star. Interview: Mary McCarty
11
Palm Beach Post. Mary McCarty’s Got a Brand New Life
12
Politico. Trump’s Late-Night Pardons Have a Sunshine State Feel
13
Palm Beach Post. Cerabino: Mary McCarty, Prison Life Coach