A handful of Lee County Sheriff’s Office employees founded a nonprofit organization called Home Front Heroes, and they are looking to rezone and build four homes for deputies to live along the North Fort Myers riverfront.

The Lee County hearing examiner was scheduled to discuss the rezoning Jan. 9 — recently rescheduled to March 13 — about the 10-acre property at 840 Moody River Road. Her recommendations would be passed along to Lee County commissioners for a vote on whether to change the residential zoning for up to 14 homes to commercial. Home Front Heroes plans to build up to 50,000 square feet of structures, including the four homes, according to its rezoning application.

The story of Home Front Heroes so far spans three years and has connections to tens of thousands of dollars in political donations. It involves more than $100,000 taxpayer dollars supporting the nonprofit, paying a former state senator a six-figure salary, plus five figures to a children’s book author with a pen name. It includes the donation of a multimillion-dollar property from a couple of Fort Myers land investors, who are also two of the largest political donors to Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno. And it involves a 40-year-old sailing club for children being evicted from the property, with unanswered questions from all of those involved.

Founded in January 2022, Home Front Heroes has been accumulating more than $1.2 million in documented assets to “help deputies recover from Hurricane Ian and help needy children,” according to its two annual forms filed with the IRS. Taxpayer support from the sheriff’s annual operating budget exceeding $160,000 has gone toward helping the nonprofit for the past two years, as well.

The assets include 9 riverfront acres with a boat slip and 1.75 acres on part of an island just across a Caloosahatchee River inlet from the mainland property. Home Front Heroes received the land as a gift from Mood Development Corp. in December 2022, property records show, three months after Hurricane Ian struck the region and at the end of the same year in which Home Front Heroes began.

Charlie and Virginia Huether of Fort Myers owned the company that owned the property. Another one of their companies owned 70 acres in Fort Myers until selling it in October 2022 for $30 million to an apartment developer. In November 2024, the Huethers’ company sold an adjacent 143 acres in Fort Myers for $66.5 million to Amazon.

In March 2023, the Huethers each donated $25,000 to Friends of Carmine, the political action committee of Marceno, campaign finance records show.

Marceno is not listed as a Home Front Heroes board member, but he appears to be connected to the nonprofit through the Huethers, who met with him and offered to donate the property after the Huethers lost two lawsuits to the Moody River Community Development District over fee payments. After a third lawsuit in 2016 ended in a settlement, Charlie Huether reached out to Marceno about donating the Moody River land to a nonprofit, said Ross Webb, who had been using the property for his Edison Sailing Center.

The Huethers declined to be interviewed for this story, through three different business associates.

“Mr. Huether was trying to do the right thing,” Webb said. “He’s a really nice guy. He got tired of dealing with the lawsuits. He approached Carmine Marceno. He said, ‘We can set up this corporation, and it can be used for a nonprofit.’”

Marceno could not be reached for comment. LCSO did not respond to an email request for an interview.

LCSO, Home Front Heroes ties run deep

The links between LCSO and Home Front Heroes run deep, with LCSO’s home page linking to the charity’s home page. The charity uses LCSO headquarters as its official address.

Undersheriff John Holloway, who is second in command at LCSO, serves as president of Home Front Heroes, and Cmdr. Daniel Cote, who works in civil operations for LCSO, is the nonprofit’s vice president.

The land Home Front Heroes owns has sat vacant other than a guard gate and a gazebo that had been used by Edison Sailing Center, a nonprofit organization that has taught local children how to sail for the past 40 years and is run by husband and wife Ross and Stephanie Webb.

In early 2023, the Webbs said they were at home when Cote of LCSO and two other uniformed deputies knocked on their door and then gave them 30 days’ notice for their sailing club to vacate the Moody River property.

“He came here with two other deputies, all in uniform,” Webb said of Cote. “Three patrol cars out front. He told us that we had to get off. The next day, I got an official letter from them saying we had 30 days to get off the property.

“I felt afraid if I didn’t do it. This was the sheriff’s department telling me I had to leave.”

The Webbs said they complied and found another home for their youth sailing programs.

Annmarie Reno, who oversees LCSO’s $315 million annual budget as executive director of support services, is the nonprofit’s treasurer and point of contact on its IRS form. She did not return a message seeking comment about Home Front Heroes. When she answered her phone Dec. 20, she said she was traveling and then hung up. She did not return two voice mail messages or an email seeking comment.

Jill Jones, who reports to Reno as budget and administrative services, serves as Home Front Heroes’ secretary.

Matthew Sands, an LCSO chief of support services, is named on the Home Front Heroes website as a board member, as is Dennis Fahey, whose Physical Evidence Consultants business is under contract with LCSO for $71,000, his contract said. Sands did not return an email seeking comment.

Fahey said he is not on the Home Front Heroes board but is an adviser to that nonprofit. He declined further comment, deferring to Cote.

None of the LCSO employees involved with Home Front Heroes returned emails seeking comment or responded to a request for interviews. They also did not provide their tax documents as requested through messages sent through the Home Front Heroes website the week of Dec. 9 and again the week of Dec. 16. The tax documents can be found on Candid.org, a resource for nonprofits.

Former state Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, who has her own lobbying company called AGL Solutions, makes $9,000 per month from LCSO as a consultant, which amounts to $108,000 per year over the past two years, her contract states. She is on the board of Home Front Heroes and has been part of discussions to rezone and develop the land, emails obtained from Moody River Community Development District show. She did not return a voicemail, text message and an email seeking comment. Her lobbying registration form, notarized in the border town of Hidalgo, Texas, said she also consults and lobbies for Southwest Florida Affordable Housing Choice Foundation, Babcock Ranch, Brizo Construction, Collaboratory, The Heights Foundation, Shell Point Retirement Community and Lee Healthcare Resources/Cypress Cove retirement community.

Benacquisto is also listed as the registered agent of Home Front Heroes LLC, a new, for-profit company formed Sept. 4, 2024, according to Florida corporate registration records. Holloway, Cote and Reno are named as the company’s principals, and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office headquarters is listed as the corporate address.

In addition to four riverfront homes, the Home Front Heroes complex would include multipurpose outdoor recreation areas, boat ramps and a private and multislip docking facility with up to 10 wet slips. Ten optional boat trailer parking dry slips also would be part of the new facility with buildings up to four stories tall — 45 feet.

It’s not uncommon for county sheriffs in Florida to create nonprofit organizations. Polk, Hillsborough and Broward are at least three examples where county sheriff departments have started nonprofits. Typically, they are geared toward raising money for deputies who have suffered medical problems or on-the-job injuries.

Rick Cohen is the chief communications and operating officer of the National Council of Non-Profits, which advises nonprofit organizations across the country on best practices. Cohen looked at two years’ worth of 990 forms filed by Home Front Heroes and didn’t know what to make of it.

“A Form 990 wouldn’t tell me much about the organization and if they’re doing things right or wrong,” Cohen said. “But from what you’ve shared, there are questions for the sheriff’s department about peoples’ use of time.

“Certainly, the questions you’re asking about the donation of land are good to ask. This doesn’t seem in line with the mission of this organization. Redeveloping land is a pretty big thing. And that’s not what it seems this organization is set up to do. Again, there’s nothing that I’m seeing that’s jumping out at me that the nonprofit is doing something wrong.”

Home Front Heroes has hired land-use attorney Richard B. Akin of Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt to spearhead the project, public records show. Akin did not return a message seeking comment.

The land would be worth roughly between $4 million and $5 million on the open market, said Matt Simmons, a property appraiser with Maxwell, Hendry and Simmons, who has not worked on the project but was familiar with the property.

“It’s definitely a unique property, and the existing RPD zoning combined with the water frontage make it appealing,” Simmons said.

Two structural engineering companies, a coastal engineer, a traffic impact analyst and environmental consultant also have been retained by Home Front Heroes, public records show.

As for the land rezoning, three out of five county commissioner votes would be required for the land to be rezoned. Commissioners are forbidden by state law to talk about zoning cases prior to them taking place.

Pattern of campaign financing amid rising budget, rezoning

With the rezoning approaching, campaign finance records show 99 law enforcement workers donated a combined $26,589 to county commissioner Kevin Ruane in 2023-24, and 109 law enforcement workers donated a combined $13,375 to county commissioner Mike Greenwell in 2024. Both were incumbents reelected in November.

The donations to Ruane and Greenwell follow similar patterns in terms of time, with Ruane receiving most of his donations from law enforcement workers twice in 2023 and Greenwell once in 2024, the records show.

LCSO Law Enforcement Bureau Chief James Rankine donated $200 in March 2023, $800 in June 2023 and $500 in June 2024 to Ruane. Rankine donated $300 in June 2024 to Greenwell. A similar pattern of donating at least twice to Ruane and once to Greenwell also happened with LCSO Col. Christopher Reeves, who oversees patrol precinct operations; LCSO Col. James Amrich, who oversees the Lee County Sheriff’s criminal investigations bureau; Maj. Bryan Perera of special operations; Maj. Robert Casale of the patrol bureau; Col. Mark Shelly of support services; and Cmdr. Mike Tamulionis of special operations. Other LCSO command staff members donated to one of those candidates but not the other.

Three Home Front Heroes board members — Cote, Jones and Sands — combined to donate $1,875 to Ruane in 2023-24 and $650 to Greenwell in 2024, the records show, with Cote contributing the maximum allowed $1,000 to Ruane. Records show Benacquisto donated $1,000 in 2023 to Ruane but nothing to Greenwell.

Most of Greenwell’s money from law enforcement was accounted for by June 24, 2024, campaign finance records show. Greenwell held a campaign fundraiser June 20 at Pelican Preserve that included Ruane and Marceno in attendance, according to photographs Greenwell shared in a post on his Facebook page.

Amanda Cochran, who ran against Greenwell, wrote a letter to Lee County Attorney Richard Wesch in June, asking if local elected officials had training in following state laws regarding campaign financing. She cited Florida statutes 104.31 and 112.313.

Wesch did not respond to Cochran. He declined to comment with Gulfshore Business.

“I remain concerned about the implications of these reports and the lack of response,” Cochran wrote in an email. “Clear guidance on the policies governing such matters is essential to maintaining transparency and public trust.”

Greenwell did not respond to two interview requests.

Ruane said the pattern of LCSO donations to him matched when he announced his candidacy in March 2023 and when he held a fundraiser in June 2023. He said he never had heard of Home Front Heroes.

“I’ve had a great following, and I do believe my record on law and order is very transparent,” said Ruane, a former Sanibel Island mayor. “It’s not hard to figure out what Kevin Ruane’s stance is. He’s demonstrated that for 18 years.”

Ruane said he raised as much money as he could to separate himself from any other potential candidates. He ended up running unopposed.

“First and foremost, my salary isn’t the guiding factor to what I do and don’t do. I donate my entire salary,” said Ruane, who has made annual contributions to a number of local charities, especially those that help feed the hungry, in excess of his county commissioner salary.

“Secondarily, I’m refunding all of the (campaign) money I received. It’s not going to influence the way I vote. It’s never going to influence how I vote. We raised over $400,000 in the race. I didn’t have an opponent. We refunded and continue to send out checks to give people their money back. I do this for the love of the community. I don’t do this for a paycheck.”

New county Commissioner David Mulicka received one donation from a law enforcement worker in 2024, amounting to $50, campaign finance records show. He received $1,000 from Benacquisto.

Incumbents Brian Hamman and Cecil Pendergrass were not on the ballot this cycle.

All five commissioners — with Ray Sandelli on the board prior to retiring and being replaced by Mulicka — voted to approve an LCSO budget that rose by about 13% from 2023 and 15% from 2022.

Rising assets for Home Front Heroes

The LCSO budget includes $5,000 per month — $60,000 per year — for Von Schnoodle LLC, which belongs to Susan Edwards of Bonita Springs, the company’s registration shows. Grace Birch, a pen name, is the author of the books. For the past two years, “Birch” has been writing children’s books about LCSO dogs and assisting with community efforts, her contract states. Edwards did not return messages seeking comment.

The books, as well as a Marceno bobblehead doll, are available to purchase for $30 to $35 on the Home Front Heroes website, with proceeds going toward the nonprofit, it states.

Some of the earliest Home Front Heroes donors included a celebrity, a national grocery store chain and a Cape Coral roofing company. They all gave prior to the North Fort Myers land donation.

Target donated $5,000 in gift cards, which were to be distributed to “those impacted by Hurricane Ian,” a Dec. 5, 2022, Lee County Sheriff Office Facebook post said. On Nov. 22, 2022, the feed celebrated a check for $10,000 written by Gagnon Roofing Inc., of Cape Coral, with a photograph of Marceno holding the ceremonial check.

And on Oct. 27, 2022, almost one month to the day after Hurricane Ian, Al Roker of NBC’s Today Show, donated $5,000 to Home Front Heroes during a live TV segment on Fort Myers Beach.

Home Front Heroes lists 16 sponsors at different levels of giving on its website.

Patrick Buchberger, listed as a Bronze Partner, said he donated $1,500. He runs his own nonprofit, Best Christmas Ever, which donates money to needy families and then provides them financial literacy training.

“The Lee County Sheriff came out and supported my event for my nonprofit, based in Minnesota,” Buchberger said. “They brought their ice cream truck.”

Buchberger said he wanted to return the favor, so he asked how he could donate and was informed he could write a check to Home Front Heroes.

Buchberger said he did not know exactly what Home Front Heroes did, but with Marceno involved, he said it sounded at the time like a good cause.

COMA of Florida, a nonprofit run by condominium owners based in Fort Myers and Naples, donated $65,000 in 2024 to Home Front Heroes, said Bonnie Schinke, president of COMA, which stands for Community Owners, Managers and Associates.

“We hold a charity golf tournament every May, and the sheriff’s department was our charity of choice, selected by the COMA board,” Schinke said. “We love partnering with the sheriff’s department for their cause.”

Schinke said she did not know exactly what that cause was.

“You would need to contact Home Front Heroes to see where else their charity funds go in the community,” Schinke said.

Home Front Heroes listed COMA as one of two Titanium Benefactors, with the other being Gunterberg Charitable Foundation.

“I come from a long family history of police and law enforcement,” said Carol Rae Culliton, president of Cape Coral-based Gunterberg, which gave to 32 different nonprofit organizations in 2022, its 990 form said. “One of the reasons I moved to Florida — and many move here — is the weather. But I’m really here because I feel safe. Almost all of us do.

“That, to me, is priceless. That’s why I give to law enforcement programs.”

Culliton said she was surprised to learn Gunterberg was listed as a Titanium Benefactor, because she said she did not donate in 2024 to Home Front Heroes, which she said did not approach her for additional funding. She would have given in 2023, but she did not recall the amount, and she did not recall what Home Front Heroes told her exactly the money would fund.

Barbara Petersen, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said the lack of transparency from LCSO and Home Front Heroes concerned her, especially since the nonprofit is connected to political donations and taxpayer funding.

“It’s not normal,” Petersen said. “It just sounds to me almost like a shell game. They’re moving things around. And this is what we’re coming up against when we’re trying to write about dark money in politics. It’s almost impossible to untangle the webs that are created.

“A charity receives tax benefits. They get that privilege in return for its service to its community. What service are they providing?

“And they’re kicking a sailing club for kids off their property. None of this makes sense. Why is the sheriff’s office paying the former state senator and paying the author, when they’re not working on behalf of the taxpayers? They’re working on behalf of the charity. The charity has to be held to a higher level of transparency and accountability.”