Commissioner won’t face criminal charges over campaign finances

FORT LAUDERDALE – A longrunning criminal investigation into Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Robert McKinzie Jr.’s political campaign has ended without charges.

The State Attorney’s Office concluded McKinzie’s 2015 campaign finance accounting was “slipshod” and his financial reports carried “multiple inaccuracies,” but “any criminal prosecution would be tenuous at best” because there is “a lack of sufficient evidence,” a close-out memo says.

“It is abundantly clear from this investigation that the accounting and money handled for this campaign was not done so in accordance with the mandated requirements,” the memo says, “but the state would be hard pressed to prove any of this was done intentionally or with any nefarious intent.”

The case was closed in October and released this week in response to a South Florida Sun Sentinel inquiry.

The case kicked off with a scathing report in 2016 from the Broward inspector general’s office detailing legal mistakes over campaign contributions.

McKinzie was his own treasurer for a time, and then had Johnnie Smith running that side of the campaign.

The allegations that were criminal were investigated by the State Attorney’s Office:

Cashier’s check: Candidates are not allowed to take more than $50 in cash or cashier’s check. McKinzie accepted a $250 cashier’s check from “D. Walsh.” His contribution report didn’t contain the rest of the required information about Walsh. McKinzie explained in a November 2017 sworn statement that he thought cashier’s checks were treated as regular checks, an explanation that’s “a reasonable hypothesis of innocence,” the memo says.

Payment: By law, candidates must pay campaign workers with checks. McKinzie was accused of withdrawing $400 cash from his campaign funds to pay a worker. It was incorrectly recorded on his financial report. He explained that he paid two workers and thought he’d recorded it correctly. The prosecutor deemed it another “misunderstanding of the pertinent campaign finance laws.”

Gas cards: Campaign funds can’t be used by a candidate for personal use after the campaign closes. McKinzie bought gas cards with campaign funds, and investigators wanted to know if he illegally used them after the campaign. Investigators found he gave the cards to Fort Lauderdale resident Helen Hinton to distribute to other campaign workers. Receipts should have been kept but were not. The prosecutor chalked it up to “sloppy accounting not in accordance with the … law,” in addition to a misunderstanding about the law. The cards were used “for legitimate campaign purposes,” the office concluded.

Refund: No documentation existed showing what McKinzie did with a $194.58 check his campaign received from Florida Power & Light as a refund. The check was signed and cashed but didn’t appear on McKinzie’s campaign reports. He told investigators he “was trying to figure out what to do with” the money and still had it. The investigator said his explanation “goes part and parcel with many other allegations in this investigation.”

McKinzie, 57, is a general contractor and president of Harper and Sons Construction.

He was appointed to the seat by city commissioners in November 2014 following former Commissioner Bobby DuBose’s election to the state Legislature. McKinzie then won the 2015 election, and was re-elected a second time last spring.

McKinzie was not new to campaigning, the Broward inspector general’s report noted. He ran unsuccessfully for the Broward County Commission in 2004, 2008 and 2012. He is the brother of former Broward County Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant.

McKinzie could not be reached despite a call to his cell phone.