Orlando businessman forces Bondi to court over unregistered charities
A judge has ordered Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to explain whether her office is ordering companies to make restitution payments to unregistered charities, as well as to charities to which her office is connected.
The order comes in a legal case filed April 3 by Orlando businessman John D. Smith, which alleges Bondi is abusing her authority by directing $5.3 million to charities not registered properly with the state. Bondi’s office has ties to at least one of the charities, Seniors vs. Crime, which the lawsuit says is improper.
A donation to a charity is common in legal settlements when it’s not easy to identify individuals who were harmed. But the state requires that all charities register with the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, if they intend to raise money.
Smith filed the lawsuit against
Bondi after her office investigated his hurricane window protector company, Storm Stoppers, for alleged false statements.
An assistant attorney general offered to settle the investigation if Smith would agree to make a donation to a charity, according to Smith, but he refused. Instead, he filed court appeals and a Florida Bar complaint against the assistant AG. Smith says he grew suspicious of Bondi’s entire process.
After Smith put up a fight, and the Florida Building Commission decided that its rules on hurricane shutters don’t apply to Smith’s product, Bondi’s office dropped the investigation.
“We never made false claims, but they would have made me sign something saying I agreed not to deceive the public,” Smith said. “She’s right I’m disgruntled. I’m offended, based on her actions violating Florida statute.”
The dispute turned ugly after Smith filed his lawsuit over the charity donations in early April. Bondi sent out a statement accusing Smith of “harassment” and “abuse.”
“These contributions, among other things, support legal services for the poor, scholarship funds, governmental entities and educational institutions,” Bondi said in the statement. “Mr. Smith’s lawsuit to stop these efforts is meritless, and I will continue my fight to protect Florida’s citizens from abusive business practices.”
Making defendants in court cases pay money to charities as restitution is commonplace. Bondi’s office has required about 56 companies, such as Dollar Tree, AT&T, Chase Bank and Home Shopping Network, to make payments to various charities during the past five years.
For example, Dollar Tree made a $5,000 donation to the Salvation Army of Florida in 2011 to settle an investigation into its overtime-pay practices, according to a settlement agreement.
In an interview, Smith said he believes Bondi’s handling of donations to charities “is part of a bigger pattern” that includes her receipt of a $25,000 check from a Trump foundation in 2013, at a time when her office was considering whether to join a New York investigation of complaints against Trump University. Bondi has said publicly that she wasn’t investigating President Donald Trump or his companies.
Smith’s lawsuit claims that some of the charities were not registered with the state.
For example, Bondi’s office allegedly directed four donations totaling $40,000 to the “Florida Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award,” which is a program Bondi’s office has promoted. The award program and 34 other charities were not registered as charities with the state, according to Smith’s suit.
In all, Bondi’s office has required over $20 million be donated to over 200 charities in the five-year period.
“The question is going to be, why are some of these charities unregistered?” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor who looked at the case. “She’s likely to answer, yep, that was a screw-up. I think the judge will say, you have to clean up this list of charities and agree not to have unregistered charities.”
The suit seeks to bar Bondi from directing payments to unregistered charities in the future and to prevent payments to charities with ties to her office. It says Bondi “has exceeded the authority granted [to the attorney general] by ignoring conflict-of-interest rules.”
Bondi’s office filed a motion to strike Smith’s petition to Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson. But Dodson already had entered an order, dated April 10, for Bondi to show why he shouldn’t grant Smith’s request.
Jarvis said the practice of settling investigations with restitution payments, often to charities related to the violation or allegations, is legal and widespread.
Tampa attorney Scott Tozian, who handles ethics and legal -malpractice cases, agreed that donating restitution to charities is an accepted practice. He immediately recognized one of the charities on Bondi’s list, Gulf Coast Legal Services, as a legitimate not-for-profit that provides free legal services to low-income people.
The AG’s office has investigated many hurricane-panel or shutter companies that claim to prevent storm damage. Bondi’s office dropped its probe of Smith’s company, Orlando-based Storm Stoppers, when the Florida Building Commission ruled it doesn’t have any purview over the Storm Stoppers product, which are strong, rigid plastic barriers placed over windows in lieu of plywood.
That’s because Storm Stoppers are temporary installations — not a metal shutter system. The Storm Stoppers are installed using fasteners sort of like industrial Velcro, not structural bolts or nails.
The building commission instead directed Smith to seek “local approval” for the panels. Smith filed a court appeal of the building commission findings, saying there were no local approvals to seek, but he lost the appeal. Smith said he still hasn’t found any local ordinances that apply to his Storm Stoppers product.