Former SFWMD chair, 69
Kevin McCarty was a South Fla. Republican
Kevin McCarty, a former chairman of the South Florida Water Management District and South Florida Republican who served time in prison, died early Sunday morning.
McCarty died at age 69 after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer, said Mary McCarty, his wife of 38 years.
“I feel very lucky to have had him for as long as I did,” Mary McCarty said through tears Sunday. “He just was a very supportive husband and my best friend and my soulmate.”
Kevin McCarty was a graduate of the University of Florida and a retired public finance executive for banking giants Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley.
He met his wife at a former private club where he bartended in the 1970s, Mary McCarty recalled. The two married in 1980 and moved to Delray Beach, soon jumping into the local political scene.
Mary McCarty joined the city’s commission in 1987. Kevin McCarty won a state GOP committeeman race a year later, before being appointed to the Delray Beach Housing Authority and Community Redevelopment Agency in the 1990s.
In 2003, he was appointed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush to the water management district, where he oversaw the region’s water supply and policies.
He was also appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to the board of Enterprise Florida, the state’s economic development arm.
But both of the McCartys became entangled in a federal corruption probe and were charged in 2009.
Kevin McCarty went to prison for eight months for not reporting financial crimes of his wife, who was a longtime Republican power broker and county commissioner. Mary McCarty had admitted at the time to benefitting from her office by boosting business for her husband’s bond-writing firm and accepting free or discounted luxury hotel stays from a company that won a county contract. She was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison.
The McCartys were also ordered to forfeit $272,000 and fined $105,000.
“I considered him a victim of circumstances that had more to do with me than with him,” Mary McCarty said. “We considered that period of our life a small chapter, and he had moved on long ago.”
The two did not have children but had three dogs that they considered their kids. Kevin McCarty was an avid lover of animals and liked golf and politics, his wife said.
“I had the absolute honor and privilege to be married to the kindest, gentlest and most generous man I could possible know,” she said.