Raid on $300 Million ‘Charity’ Forces Fla. Lt. Gov. to Resign

Authorities in Florida and five other states carried out a massive raid on a politically well-connected charity that has been called a fraud by the Internal Revenue Service.

Allied Veterans of the World operates computer gambling parlors, which are legal in Florida as long as they primarily benefit charity. Officials wielding 57 arrest warrants call the group a sham.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll was not charged, but she resigned anyway a day after she said she was questioned about Allied Veterans. According to The Associated Press, she once did an ad for the group and may have been connected through her PR firm. Carroll said she resigned so as not to distract from the governor’s agenda.

If Carroll’s name is familiar, it may be because she was Florida’s first African-American lieutenant governor, or it may be because she once suggested she was too attractive to be a lesbian.

—Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.

Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll speaks at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.