Content warning: This story discusses alleged child sexual abuse and kidnapping. I have avoided unnecessary graphic details, but some of the allegations are deeply disturbing. Please take care while reading, and feel completely free to skip this one.
by Sharad Swaney
Dear Room,
A Republican handpicked by Ron DeSantis to safeguard the court records of 1.5 million Floridians was arrested Tuesday on five felony charges involving a child.
One of them is kidnapping. The list also includes child molestation.
Michael Caruso, 67, is not some forgotten party volunteer or random county functionary. He served seven years in the Florida House. Then, in August 2025, DeSantis appointed him Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, an office that keeps criminal records, protects evidence, audits county money and helps hold the justice system together.
Now Caruso is inside that system himself.
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The five charges.
According to the Palm Beach Post, Caruso faces felony counts of kidnapping, child molestation, lewd exhibition, luring or enticing a child, and child abuse causing mental injury.
The allegations laid out by investigators are horrifying, and the public record should not be softened just because the accused man once had “Representative” in front of his name.
Investigators say the alleged victim is a young male relative and that the abuse began in the fall of 2024. The boy reportedly described incidents during a fishing trip, a Thanksgiving gathering and a family cruise.
On that cruise, investigators say Caruso separated the boy from his parents for about an hour under the guise of getting ice cream.
When they returned, the boy’s uncle noticed that Caruso had changed clothes.
Read that again.
He allegedly took a child away from his parents for “ice cream.” They were gone for roughly an hour. He came back wearing different clothes.
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How the family found out.
The most devastating part of this story is not the political connection. It is how the alleged abuse surfaced.
According to investigators, the boy’s father became alarmed in October after seeing his son behaving in a sexualized way with a younger brother. The boy then disclosed that Caruso had touched him and exposed himself on prior occasions.
The first alarm was not a court record, but a child carrying the alleged abuse into the next room.
I am 20. I am close enough to childhood to remember how total a child’s trust can be, especially around family. Adults choose the trip and decide who is safe. When an adult says a relative can take you for ice cream, a child is not supposed to calculate whether that trust is being used as access.
That is why the words “young relative” matter so much here. Investigators are not describing a stranger lurking outside a school. They are describing an adult who allegedly had the one credential children are taught to trust most: family.
The man in charge of the files.
Caruso’s office is responsible for safeguarding Palm Beach County’s court records. His own campaign website boasted that he led nearly 650 employees, served more than 1.5 million residents and oversaw a $76 million operating budget. It branded his career as one built on “integrity.”
On Tuesday morning, DeSantis suspended him.
The clerk’s office said it had been notified of Caruso’s arrest on “serious criminal charges” and that public services would continue. Attorney General James Uthmeier said Caruso would be held without bail in the Orange County Jail pending his first appearance. Uthmeier also said the investigation remains open and that more charges are expected.
Caruso had been preparing to run for the office in November. No other Republican filed against him, so he did not appear on the primary ballot.
One day, he was asking voters to keep him as the constitutional officer entrusted with records, money and public accountability.
The next, the public was reading his list of felony charges.
This is why the Room exists.
Local reporting caught the details that make this more than another push alert: the fishing trip, Thanksgiving, the cruise, the hour away, the changed clothes, the father who recognized something was terribly wrong.
Those details take time to verify and care to write. They also require restraint. A child’s trauma is not content. The job is to put the record in order, name the power around the accused and refuse to let political status blur what authorities are alleging.
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The quiet part.
The scandal is not that a politician can be accused of something monstrous. Political office has never purified anyone.
The scandal is how much authority we allow a title to manufacture.
“Representative.” “Clerk.” “Comptroller.” “Family.” Each word can sound like proof of safety. None of them is proof.
DeSantis gave Caruso control of an office built around public trust. His campaign sold integrity. His family connection allegedly gave him private access to a child. The institutions around him looked solid until one father noticed the damage showing up in another room.
Caruso has not been convicted. The evidence must be tested in court, and the child at the center of this deserves privacy, care and protection far beyond the life of a news cycle.
But “wait for the courts” cannot mean “look away from the power.” It means follow the case carefully. Preserve the facts. Ask who knew what, and when. Watch whether the same political machine that promoted this man now treats his appointment like an unfortunate clerical error.
If this made you stop, Restack it. Send it to the person who still thinks local offices do not matter. And if someone forwarded this to you, subscribe so the next story does not depend on an algorithm deciding you should see it.
Thank you for being in this room.
— Sharad
If you want to support this work or donate without a subscription, you can chip in directly through Venmo at @sharadswaney or you can buy me a coffee. Every bit genuinely helps keep the reporting going.
A note for the room: I am 19 years old, running a nonprofit and this publication on my own. I work with research and editing tools, including Claude, an AI assistant, to keep up, the way other reporters work with editors and fact-checkers. Every quote and every source in this post was verified by me before anything went live. Other people will not tell you this, but I really care about journalistic integrity. Letting you know I use these tools to help me do this work all on my own is important to me. The room means trust, and trust means I tell you how the work gets made.
Palm Beach Post, Aug. 18, 2026: arrest, charges, alleged conduct, suspension, detention and office response.
Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller: duties of the clerk’s office.
Mike Caruso campaign website: appointment history, office size, budget and campaign language.
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