Gov. Patrick is having one goddamn bad week, isn't he?
A top official in the Patrick administration has been placed on unpaid leave because he was arrested in Florida and charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male in a steam room at a $500-a-night Gulf Coast resort.Carl Stanley McGee, 38, assistant secretary for policy and planning, is scheduled to be arraigned next week for sexual battery in Lee County, Fla. McGee helped draft Patrick's casino bill, life sciences legislation, and his plan to bring broadband Internet service to the farthest reaches of the state.
According to police reports, McGee was arrested Dec. 28 and accused of performing oral sex on the 15-year-old, who was a guest at The Gasparilla Inn & Club, a 95-year-old hotel and championship golf course in Boca Grande. McGee was held overnight on a $300,000 bond.
Few state employees were aware of the arrest. An account had appeared in the local newspaper, the Boca Beacon. McGee's co-workers said they had been told he was out sick.
McGee, whose annual salary is approximately $150,000, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Charles Rankin, did not return phone calls from the Globe.
Kofi Jones - spokesman for McGee's direct supervisor, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Daniel O'Connell - issued a brief written statement saying, "Mr. McGee was placed on administrative leave effective January 7, pending the outcome of the matter."
McGee, a former Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate, was previously a corporate lawyer at the law firm WilmerHale.
He was instrumental in the movement seeking to defeat efforts to overturn legalization of same-sex marriage, serving as director of the civic and business outreach efforts of the advocacy group MassEquality.
Somewhere, Kerry Healey is cracking up...
UPDATE: More from the Globe and Herald.
SECOND UPDATE: More from Bay Windows and Scott Allen Miller.
