A senior member of Governor Deval Patrick’s administration was accused in a civil lawsuit yesterday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in a steam room at an exclusive Florida resort in 2007.The civil suit against Carl Stanley McGee, an assistant secretary in the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, follows a decision by Florida prosecutors to drop criminal charges that were initially brought after the incident.
The boy, a high school senior who lives in upstate New York, filed the suit in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston alleging that McGee forced himself on the teenager two years ago. McGee was arrested in Florida on Dec. 28, 2007, after the boy alleged that McGee had performed oral sex on him when he was a guest at the Gasparilla Inn & Club in Boca Grande, according to police reports at the time. McGee was held overnight on a $300,000 bond before being released.
At the time, McGee was placed on unpaid administrative leave from his state post, but he returned to work three months later after the prosecutor in Lee County, Florida, declined to bring charges.
Yesterday, neither the alleged victim, referred to in the complaint only as John Doe, nor his family agreed to be interviewed about the civil case against McGee. But Wendy Murphy, a family spokeswoman, said they are looking for “another form of justice.’’
McGee, 40, was on vacation and could not be reached yesterday for comment. Boston lawyer Charles Rankin, who handled criminal proceedings in Florida for McGee, did not return a phone call. Kofi Jones, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for the office of the state attorney in Lee County, Florida, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The civil suit was filed on behalf of the teenager and his parents by attorney Andrew Meyer of Lubin and Meyer. The family is seeking unspecified money damages.
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