State drops perjury charge against former Broward schools superintendent Robert Runcie
Miami Herald | By David Goodhue |
State prosecutors dropped a perjury charge against former Broward County Public Schools superintendent Robert Runcie four years after his arrest, his lawyer confirmed Monday.
Runcie, 63, was set to go on trial for the charge this week. A grand jury indicted him and the district’s then general counsel Barbara Myrick in April 2021.
Runcie was accused of lying to a statewide grand jury that was investigating the district’s soliciting and acceptance of state funds that were contingent on implementing safety measures mandated after the Feb. 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting.
The grand jury was tasked with probing whether school districts committed fraud when they solicited and accepted millions of dollars from a state bond issue contingent on implementing safety measures required by the Legislature in the wake of the tragedy.
The charge was dropped Monday as part of discussions that started last week between his lawyers and the Office of Statewide Prosecution, his attorney, Michael Dutko, told the Herald.
Both sides came up with an agreement that Runcie would enter into a diversion program that basically said he would acknowledge he made some inaccurate statements to the grand jury, but he would not have to admit to perjury. He would also have to avoid any legal trouble for the next six months.
Broward Judge Martin Fein did not agree to the deal, so prosecutors agreed to not proceed with the case, but Runcie is responsible for paying the more than $4,700 in investigative costs, Dutko said.
Perjury is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Myrick made a deal with prosecutors in October to plead no contest to misdemeanor attempted disclosure of grand jury proceedings and was sentenced to a year of probation.
Fein dismissed the case against Runcie in April 2023 on jurisdictional grounds, but the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed that decision.
Prosecutors alleged that Runcie prepared to testify in front of the grand jury by talking to at least one witness in another case against another school’s official that the grand jury investigated — and then didn’t tell the truth under oath when asked about it.
That case was against Tony Hunter, the former head of the district’s technology department, who prosecutors accused of using existing school district contracts to buy millions in computer equipment without going through the bidding process.
A judge dismissed that case in September.
The Broward County School Board hired Runcie in 2011 from the Chicago Board of Education. He was the district’s first Black superintendent, the son of Jamaican parents.
He resigned as superintendent in May 2021, and the Broward School Board approved a $754,900 exit package.
When Runcie told the Broward School Board in April 2021 he would resign, he said he was stepping down not because of the perjury charge, but because of how he was being blamed for the events leading up to the Parkland school shootings.
