Update: 1:00 A.M EST
Speaking at a campaign office opening for Mitt Romney in Orange Park, Florida, Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll spoke out about the sex scandal she’s found herself involved in since Carletha Cole claimed that she witnessed Carroll and a top aide, Beatriz Ramos, in a “compromising position” inside Carroll’s office.
Tampa Bay’s 10News reports:
“The problem is that when you have these accusations that come out, it’s not just one person you’re attacking,” Carroll said. “It’s an entire family. My husband doesn’t want to hear that. He knows the type of woman I am. I mean, my kids know the type of woman I am. For twenty-nine years - I’m the one that’s married for twenty-nine years. The accuser is the one that’s been single for a long time. So usually black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.”
Cole was allegedly given a polygraph test. When she was asked did she answer truthfully about “observing a sexually compromising position in the Capital”, a retired FDLE agent said “she passed,” according to 10News.
See Carroll’s statement here:
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — An ongoing criminal case against a former top aide to Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll is transforming into a swirl of allegations about improper relationships, widespread illegal taping and other incidents inside Carroll’s office.
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The allegations, which Carroll denies, were included in a court filing made late last week by the attorney representing Carletha Cole, who was arrested last October on charges that she gave an illegally taped conversation with another Carroll aide to a newspaper reporter.
Cole’s attorneys made the filing in response to prosecutors’ attempts to seal some evidence in the case.
In the filing, Cole contends that she witnessed Carroll and a top aide, Beatriz Ramos, in a “compromising position” inside Carroll’s office, that Carroll’s chief of staff secretly recorded conversations routinely at the direction of those working for Gov. Rick Scott, and that the trash can at Cole’s desk might have been deliberately set ablaze following an argument between her and Ramos.
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Cole also said Ramos was living at Carroll’s home and at one point she was ordered by Ramos to find adjoining hotel rooms for Carroll and Ramos when they traveled. Cole said that she was “scolded” by an agent with Carroll’s security team when she placed Ramos next door to Carroll when the lieutenant governor and her husband traveled last summer to Puerto Rico. The agent told her to not do it again, Cole says, although he did not explain why.
Carroll, a former Navy officer who is also a mother of three, says the allegations are all lies.
“That’s totally false and absurd,” said Carroll, a former Republican legislator who was chosen by Scott as his running mate in 2010.
Carroll said the allegations are an attempt by Cole and her attorney to get the criminal charges against Cole dropped. Cole is charged with a third-degree felony and could get up to five years in prison.
“They are trying to pull at straws,” Carroll said. “All this stuff you mentioned doesn’t excuse what happened.”
Ramos, whose title is special assistant to the lieutenant governor, did not return a phone call to her office.
Stephen Webster, the Tallahassee attorney representing Cole, stood by the allegations included in the filing: “That’s the truth. It is what it is.”
Webster said Cole is a grandmother and minister who had never been in previous legal trouble. He said the filing was made to show that Carroll, Ramos and Carroll’s chief of staff, John Konkus, have reasons to make Cole look bad because they could be witnesses at Cole’s trial.
“It’s a desperate prosecution that is politically motivated,” he said.
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