PLANTATION, Fla. – Broward’s inspector general announced Tuesday that a former Plantation mayor broke the law with a range of violations from hiding public records to falsifying campaign finance documents during her 2018 campaign.
Former City of Plantation Mayor Lynn Stoner “has entered a consent final order with the Florida Elections Commission (FEC), in which she admitted to violating several state campaign finance laws during her 2018 mayoral campaign,” a press release from the Office of the Inspector General stated.
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After a lengthy investigation, inspectors released a 238-page report in November of 2020, revealing how Stoner frequently bypassed Florida’s Sunshine Law, which allows open access for board meetings and denied public records requests to city council members.
According to the press release, Stoner admitted to a number of violations which include:
• Authorizing an improper expenditure by writing a check to a vendor which caused the campaign bank account to be overdrawn and to making an unlawful post-election loan to her campaign to cover the overdraft.
• Failing to report her unlawful post-election loan and failing to report several campaign expenditures.
• Failing to dispose her surplus campaign funds within 90 days after being elected to office.
According to investigators, the FEC case was based on the Broward Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG’s) November 2020 final report which allowed inspectors to rule that Stoner engaged in misconduct by violating open government laws as well as the city’s charter by taking several administrative actions that exceeded her authority.
As a result of these violations, the FEC ordered Stoner to pay a $1,200 civil penalty.
The FEC did not reveal whether Stoner will be facing any criminal charges.