A former Florida Keys commissioner pleads guilty to campaign finance law violations
Former Monroe County Commissioner Eddie Martinez pleaded guilty Wednesday to four counts of campaign finance law violations, including using campaign money to pay for personal expenses like his Netflix bill.
As part of the agreement to the misdemeanor charges, Monroe County Circuit Judge Albert Kelley sentenced Martinez, 48, to two years of probation and four community service hours a month during the time of the probation. The sentence also prohibits him from running for public office while on probation.
Martinez was also ordered to pay $2,000 in court costs. His attorney, Richard Wunsch, was not available for comment.
Although the crimes happened in Monroe County, the case was investigated and prosecuted by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office because Keys law enforcement officials recused themselves.
Martinez, a Republican, won an upset election for one of Monroe County’s Key West district seats over Democratic incumbent Heather Curruthers in November 2020. Carruthers sued Martinez, claiming he never lived in Key West.
The lawsuit was eventually withdrawn, but Martinez ended up resigning in December 2021, just a week after he was arrested on a domestic violence charge in Hialeah.
His wife told arresting officers at the time that he had a prescription drug problem. Three of his four colleagues on the Monroe County Commission immediately urged him to resign after the incident.
On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to accepting campaign contributions in excess of the legal limit, failing to list required information on a campaign form, improper expenditure of campaign funds from an account with insufficient funds, and using campaign funds to pay for personal living expenses.
State Attorney’s Office Investigator Robert Fielder wrote in his June 6, 2022, probable cause affidavit that between November 2020 and January 2021, Martinez withdrew more than $2,000 from his campaign account and used it to pay bills from Netflix, U-Haul and CVS Pharmacy.
The report also states that in September 2020, Martinez transferred $3,000 from his personal checking account to the campaign’s account. But Fielder said that money was a loan from the federal government designated for small businesses affected by COVID-19.
That transaction also resulted in Martinez being charged with accepting a campaign contribution over the legal threshold of $1,000.
