Florida Sheriff Received $50,000 Donation from Jail Medical Contractor
Armor Health, the company that held a $24 million contract to provide healthcare at the Lee County Jail, gave local Sheriff Carmine Marceno a $50,000 donation four months before the medical contract was terminated, according to the The News-Press in Fort Myers. On February 23, 2024, Armor health made the payment to a political action committee (PAC) that supported Marceno’s reelection campaign. Another company, Enhanced Health Solutions LLC, wrote a $1,000 check to the PAC on the same day. Both companies are led by the same CEO and share the same address in Miami.
The donations came as the three-year contract that Armor Health held with the Lee County Jail, which locks up around 1,600 detainees, was up for an additional one-year renewal. Armor Health, however, must not have plied Marceno with enough money as the company’s contract was cancelled in June 2024. Five months later, in November of that year, Maceno won re-election with 90.6% of the vote.
Armor Health, like most of the private healthcare companies that contract with jails, has a long track record of medical neglect and preventable deaths. In 2023, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office terminated a $98 million contract with Armor after jail deaths tripled under its care. In Wisconsin, Armor was criminally prosecuted for the dehydration death of detainee Terrill Thomas who, in 2016, spent a week in his cell without water.
After Armor was axed, Marceno signed a replacement three-year contract with NaphCare Inc., a larger private healthcare entity with a longer record of abuse, for roughly $43.46 million. NaphCare was not listed as a direct contributor to Marceno’s campaign. [See: PLN, Apr. 2024, p. 1].
PACs allow unlimited contributions and are known as a vehicle for “dark money” because they can be used to conceal the source of funding.
Source: The News-Press
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