Inn assault suspect is top aide to Mass. governor

Carl Stanley McGee, the 38-year-old Boston man charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy at the Gasparilla Inn and Club in December, has been placed on unpaid leave from his high profile job as a top aide to Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick.

McGee, who is slated to be arraigned in Lee County Circuit Court on Monday, Feb. 11 on sexual battery charges, was suspended from his job as the state’s assistant secretary for policy and planning on January 7, according to a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Economic Development.

McGee’s co-workers were not aware of the charges until Wednesday following inquiries made by the Boston Globe and the Boca Beacon. According to the Globe, the department’s employees had been told McGee was ill.

McGee is a former Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate who garnered headlines in May 2005, when he married John Finley IV in a same-sex marriage that was featured in a New York Times article. Finley’s parents own a home in Boca Grande. Prior to joining the Patrick administration, McGee worked to defeat efforts to overturn the state’s same sex marriage law.

According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the teenage boy said he had spoken to McGee in the steam room of the Inn the day prior to the alleged assault. The boy told police that on December 28, McGee approached him in the steam room and performed oral sex on the teen.

The teen identified McGee to police and McGee was arrested. He was released from the Lee County Jail on $300,000 bond.

On the day he was released from jail, McGee was ticketed for speeding by Lee County deputies. He also has a court date on the speeding case next week.

In November, McGee was named one of the Globe’s 25 most stylish Bostonians.