Background
Mary Ballard McCarty was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 8, 1954, the eldest of six children.
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Mary McCarty
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Education
In 1969, McCarty"s family moved to Spooner, Wisconsin, where McCarty graduated from Spooner High School in June, 1972.
Career
McCarty resigned from the Board of County Commissioners after she pled guilty to one count of honest services fraud. Previously she was also City Commissioner and Vice Mayor of Delray Beach, Florida from 1987-1990. In December 2000 McCarty became the Republican Party Chair for Palm Beach County and served two years.
The family lived there for a time in Arlington Heights and Northbrook, both suburbs of Chicago.
In the same month, McCarty"s family moved to Delray Beach, Florida. McCarty started attending the University of Florida in 1973.
She began her career in politics as an intern for United States House Majority Leader Tip O"Neill in Washington District of Columbia in 1974 and helped to monitor the Watergate Hearings. She worked as a waitress to help pay for college.
Her interests were primarily in the public relations aspects of journalism.
She graduated from the University of Florida in August, 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. McCarty went on to work in many capacities in the restaurant industry including, waiting tables, bar-tending, and management. In 1986, McCarty co-chaired the Delray Beach 75th Diamond Jubilee, a month-long city anniversary celebration.
From 1987 - 1990, she was a City Commissioner and Vice-Mayor of Delray Beach.
From November 1990 until her 2009 resignation, she was a county commissioner of Palm Beach County. In 2002, Chief Executive Officer Magazine named her as one of the "100 Most Powerful People in South Florida".
While elected as a Palm Beach County Commissioner for 18 years, Mary resigned her office on January 8, 2009, and pleaded guilty to one count of Conspiracy to Commit Honest Services Fraud. The charges stemmed from votes on projects that indirectly benefited her husband’s employer without the required disclosure and failure to disclose that she received reduced hotel rates from a company that did business with the county*.
She was remanded from the courtroom and sentenced to 42 months in Federal Prison and completed 22 months at the Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas in March 2011*.
Mary's incarceration included a week in the County Jail, 5 weeks in a Maximum Security Federal Detention Center,* transported by Conair to Texas where she completed the RDAP (Residential Drug Assistance Program) and as a result, received 9 months off of her sentence. She was under halfway house supervision for 6 months and completed her 3 year probation period on September 18, 2014. Her husband, Kevin also pleaded guilty to a Misprision of a Felony for not reporting his wife’s crimes to authorities.
He was sentenced to 8 months and spent 5 months in Miami Federal Prison Camp, serving the remaining time under Halfway House supervision.
Honest Services Fraud was redefined by the United States Supreme Court in June 2010 to include crimes only relating to bribery or extortion Mary was never charged with those crimes.
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Political Party
Republican party