Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry told News4JAX on Thursday that he still doesn’t wish to speak directly about the federal indictments against the two former leaders of JEA.
Former Chief Executive Officer Aaron Zahn and former Chief Financial Officer Ryan Wannemacher have pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attempted sale of JEA in 2019 that went awry. In the past, Curry strongly supported Zahn and appointed him to the JEA board before the sales attempt occurred.
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When Zahn left the federal courthouse last week, I tried to get his side of story and wanted to find out if he thought the mayor should be charged as well.
He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye — and didn’t say a thing.
On Thursday, I had a chance to ask the mayor the same thing — his thoughts on the charges. Curry did talk, but essentially stuck to an earlier statement, that he believes it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.
“Look, Jim, my administration will cooperate with any official inquiries into the management of the local utility, but out of respect for the ongoing legal process, I’m going reserve further comment,” Curry said.
Jim: Not talking about the legal process, is there a sense of relief in your office that there were only two people indicted and nobody, say, in your staff or within the city? Was there a sigh of relief?
“Jim, I’ve said what I have to say at this point in time,” Curry responded to my question.
Jim: But what about all the finger-pointing. There was a lot of finger-pointing at you in particular in all of this.
“Jim, I get fingers pointed at me on every single issue in the city, it comes with the job. So, finger-pointing on any issue does not bother me. It’s part of the job, and as it relates to this issue, again, we will cooperate with any official inquiries, but respect the legal process and we’re going to reserve further comment at this time,” Curry replied.
Neither Curry nor his staff were named in the indictments.
In the indictments, only Zahn and Wannemacher were named in what observers say could be the biggest fraud committed against the city of Jacksonville.
It all stems from allegations of an attempt to take millions in personal profits from a proposed sale of the utility through a controversial bonus plan, which would have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
While curry did not talk about the particulars, I asked him about JEA in general.
“I think right now you’ve got a board of JEA that’s active, you’ve got a leadership over there that’s running the utility and I think they’re doing good work,” Curry said.
A court date has been set for May, but already attorneys for Zahn and Wannemacher are asking for delays in hearings.