On the day jury selection was set to begin for his trial, a felony perjury charge against former Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie was dropped by the state attorney’s office.
Runcie was indicted in April 2021 for allegedly lying to a statewide grand jury that investigated events surrounding the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, which left 17 dead.
Four years later, Runcie’s lawyers and the Office of Statewide Prosecution were able to reach an agreement where he would acknowledge that he made untrue statements but would not admit to perjury. The agreement also calls for Runcie to pay the prosecution costs and agree not to violate the law for six months.
Runcie’s lawyer said it’s a great relief for the case to be over.
“While Mr. Runcie has acknowledged that some of the responses he gave may have been unclear, our position had this proceeded to trial was that some of the questions themselves were not specific and therefore unclear, and the parties have come to an agreement that there was perhaps a lack of clarity on both sides. This resolution is the result of that. It’s been very difficult personally on him, on the family, on his wife, but he’s held up and he’s been a rock for them,” Mike Dutko said.
The case against Runcie stemmed from questions over his management of a $1 billion bond issue that passed four years before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre.
Runcie and other bond supporters had said its primary focus would be to improve school safety. But the grand jurors in their final report accused Runcie and school board members of making “uninformed or even misinformed decisions, incompetent management and lack of meaningful oversight” in the bond’s implementation.
Runcie accused of making false statements
Prosecutors had contended that Runcie lied repeatedly to the grand jury when asked about the criminal case against his former technology chief, Tony Hunter. The grand jury indicted Hunter earlier in 2021 on charges he took a bribe from a vendor to rig a contract that came from the bond issue.
Hunter pleaded not guilty. Last year, a judge dismissed Hunter’s case on jurisdictional grounds.
Prosecutors said Runcie told the grand jury he had not contacted anyone about the Hunter case and his only knowledge of the contract was from a presentation given years earlier. In fact, prosecutors said, Runcie had contacted others, including former procurement director Mary Coker, about the contract just days before he testified.
In April 2023, Circuit Judge Martin Fein dismissed the perjury charge, agreeing with defense attorneys that state law only gives it jurisdiction over crimes that occurred in multiple counties. Runcie only testified in one. His attorneys argued that if the statewide grand jury had evidence of Runcie committing perjury, it should have turned that over to the Broward County grand jury or the local state attorney’s office for consideration.
The state appealed and in October 2024, a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned Fein’s decision to dismiss the charge.
Runcie led the Broward school district for 10 years, his last day was Aug. 10, 2021.
