Former longtime Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence President and CEO Tiffany Carr on Monday pleaded no contest to two felony charges stemming from allegations that she bilked the state out of money earmarked for domestic violence shelters.
Carr, 57, appeared on Zoom from a hospital bed to enter the plea to charges of organized fraud and official misconduct. As part of the plea, she agreed to testify against a co-defendant, former coalition Chief Financial Officer Patricia Duarte, whose trial is scheduled to start Jan. 20.
Carr is expected to be sentenced to 10 years of probation, though sentencing will not occur until after the Duarte case is resolved. She also will pay about $260,000 in costs related to the case.
Leon County Circuit Judge Stephen Everett accepted the plea agreement, which was reached by Carr’s attorneys and the Office of Statewide Prosecution.
Prosecutor Guillermo Vallejo said the state approved the agreement, at least in part, because Carr did not have a criminal history and because she agreed to testify at Duarte’s trial.
In a no contest plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but does not contest the charges and accepts punishment. The organized fraud charge is a first-degree felony, while the official misconduct charge is a third-degree felony. A grand-theft charge was dropped as part of the plea agreement.
Christopher Kise, an attorney for Carr, declined to discuss the medical condition that prevented her from appearing in person during Monday’s plea hearing. Vallejo objected to holding the hearing without Carr in the courtroom, but Everett allowed it to move forward.
Carr, who served as president and CEO of the nonprofit coalition for more than two decades, resigned in 2019 amid probes by the governor’s office and the Florida House into the coalition’s finances and reports that she had received exorbitant compensation.
In announcing charges against Carr and Duarte in 2023, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement alleged that they “submitted false quarterly reports, billed the state for vacant positions and charged for services never provided. The ill-gotten funds were used for excessive bonus and leave payouts to Carr and Duarte in the amounts of $3.4 million to Carr and $291,000 for Duarte.”
The charges came after a 2021 civil settlement that included Carr repaying $2.1 million in compensation she received from the coalition and Duarte repaying $35,000. Coupled with other money from sources such as insurance coverage, Kise said Monday the “state has been made whole.”
“There’s no missing money because the state was paid back,” Kise, a former state solicitor general who also has represented President Donald Trump, told reporters after the hearing.
The Florida Department of Children and Families for more than a decade had a sole-source contract that made the coalition the pass-through for millions of dollars meant for domestic-violence shelters, which provide services to domestic-violence victims. The contract was enshrined in state law.
Lawmakers in 2020 stripped the coalition’s relationship with DCF from state law. DCF also canceled its contract with the organization and filed a civil lawsuit accusing Carr and the nonprofit of breach of contract. The 2021 settlement also called for the nonprofit and its foundation to be dissolved.
Kise defended Carr on Monday, saying she had spent a “lifetime protecting and caring for victims of domestic violence.”
