The U.S. Attorney for the Middle section of Florida, Robert O'Neill, announced Monday afternoon that after a year long investigation, his office would not pursue charges that state Senator Jim Norman violated criminal laws.
Norman was under investigation after media reports surfaced in the summer of 2010 revealing that he never listed an Arkansas vacation home that was purchased in the name of his wife, Mearline, in 2006 on his financial disclosure forms. The home, it was discovered, was purchased for half a million dollars, all courtesy of former GOP Hillsborough county power broker Ralph Hughes, who passed away in 2008.
Hughes was a campaign contributor to Norman and nearly every other Republican on the board for years.
Even after his exoneration, Norman is maintaining radio silence on the issue, declining to go on the record with either of the two Tampa dailies who wrote about O'Neill's announcement on Monday, the Tampa Tribune and the St. Pete Times.
But if Norman is no longer under the cloud of possible prison time, he still faces an investigation by the state Commission on Ethics, an investigation that began after a complaint from occasional CL contributor George Niemann.
But perhaps more importantly, the question becomes, what do voters think? Norman's toughest competition in the conservative leaning senate district last year was in his own primary, which took place just a month after the scandal broke. But Norman easily defeated then-state Representative Kevin Ambler.
And the Democrats? They couldn't even muster up a live body to oppose the ethically challenged former Hillsborough County Commissioner (Norman ended up soundly defeating two write-in candidates).
