Gov. Bush's appointment follows a request by State Attorney Lawson Lamar for an investigation into the Orange mayor's partnership.
Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday evening appointed an outside prosecutor to investigate Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty's lucrative partnership with a real-estate broker whose projects have often come before the county government for approval.
Bush's appointment of southwest Florida prosecutor Stephen B. Russell followed a request by Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar for an investigation of "possible violations" of state law in a one-year investment with broker Daryl Carter in which Crotty made $112,000 between September 2002 and September 2003.
Crotty said he has done nothing wrong and said he hopes the investigation is completed in "as timely a manner as possible."
"People know I have a long history of transparency," he said. "I have a reputation of being forthright."
Facing re-election this fall, Crotty also said, "One would question the timing of a political agenda" that brings a potentially embarrassing investigation "just six months before my election."
Carter could not be reached for comment Monday.
In a three-paragraph letter to Bush, dated Friday and released Monday, Lamar said there is a "pending investigation" of possible violations of laws regarding voting conflicts and unlawful compensation for official behavior.
Lamar's letter said he requested the outside investigation because his office deals with Crotty on matters including county ordinance enforcement and because Crotty, as county mayor, is the landlord of Lamar's offices at the Orange County Courthouse.
A spokeswoman for Lamar said Monday that he would not comment on the investigation.
Russell, based in Naples, is the state attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit. In January, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist named Russell as a co-chairman of Crist's Lee County campaign, describing the prosecutor as an "activist during the Bush-Cheney campaign," according to Crist's election Web site.
Crotty, a former state legislator and property appraiser, has served as county mayor since he was appointed by fellow Republican Bush in January 2001 to fill the seat vacated by now-U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez.
The Orlando Sentinel reported Feb. 24 that Crotty invested $100,000 in a Palm Beach County land deal with Carter in September 2002 that netted the mayor a $112,141 profit a year later.
Crotty said he had told Carter he was interested in an investment opportunity, but only if it was outside Orange County.
Crotty said he became a partner of Carter's, a longtime friend with whom he meets for weekly Bible study, on Sept. 24, 2002. That was two weeks after a Sept. 10 County Commission meeting in which Crotty voted to rezone more than 1,300 acres of Carter's land in the Signature Lakes planned development in west Orange County.
Two weeks after the private partnership began, Crotty and other county commissioners voted to approve a development agreement for Signature Lakes, but Carter said he had already sold the land the day after the Sept. 10 vote.
State law requires public officials to disclose a conflict of interest and abstain from voting on any matter that benefits a business associate.
Crotty made no public disclosure of his partnership at the time of his votes. He said he wasn't required to do so because at the time of the first vote he and Carter were not partners, and by the time of the second vote Carter no longer owned the land.
In his deal with Carter, Crotty was one of several investors who put up money to buy a 90-acre tract in Boynton Beach for $21.8 million. The investment group sold the property a year later for more than $37 million.
Both Crotty and Carter emphasized the investment opportunity was based on their longtime friendship, not Crotty's position as mayor overseeing the county government that Carter has frequently turned to for approval of zoning and development issues.
Carter, or the firm of which he's president, Maury L. Carter & Associates, has brought at least a half-dozen utility, road and development issues before county commissioners since Crotty became mayor in 2001. None of those occurred during the year in which Crotty and Carter were partners.
After the Sentinel reported the partnership between Crotty and Carter, Crotty said he would abstain from voting on matters involving his friend.
Crotty will have his first opportunity to do so at today's County Commission meeting, at which commissioners will vote on a consent-agenda item about Carter's fee for development-related road construction on Narcoossee Road in southeast Orange County.
Roger Roy can be reached at rroy@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5436. David Damron can be reached at ddamron@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5311
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