South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Brodeur: I did not know of scheme
‘Ghost’ candidate investigation ‘has nothing to do with’ campaign, he says
The Republican who won a competitive Florida Senate race in 2020 said this week he didn’t know about his former employee’s alleged role in helping a “ghost” candidate who was central to a vote-siphoning scheme apparently intended to boost his candidacy.
State Sen. Jason Brodeur spoke to the Orlando Sentinel about the scandal for the first time on Wednesday, saying he wasn’t aware Ben Paris was allegedly involved in the behind-the-scenes effort to undermine Democrat Patricia Sigman at the same time he was working under Brodeur’s supervision at the Seminole County Chamber.
Paris, the current chair of the Seminole County GOP, is accused of secretly contributing to independent candidate Jestine Iannotti in his cousin’s name, a violation of election finance law.
Paris was working as the vice president of operations for the Seminole Chamber, where Brodeur is the president and CEO, until last Tuesday, when Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer announced Paris had been charged with a misdemeanor.
But Brodeur said he wasn’t aware of Paris’ involvement in Iannotti’s candidacy, which was promoted by GOP operatives in a scheme that almost certainly helped clear his path to winning the Senate District 9 seat, which includes all of Seminole County and part of Volusia.
“This has nothing to do with my campaign,” he said.
Brodeur spoke to the Sentinel at a fundraiser for his re-election campaign Wednesday evening at the Heathrow Country Club. A Sentinel reporter approached Brodeur as he was arriving at the event after he did not respond to multiple requests for comment by phone and email.
In addition to Paris, charges were announced last week against Iannotti and political consultant Eric Foglesong. Both are accused of falsifying Iannotti’s campaign finance documents, listing the names of people who did not actually donate in an apparent attempt to make her candidacy seem more legitimate.
Iannotti received more than 5,000 votes.
The charges were prompted by a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation that started last year. Paris, a longtime friend of Iannotti’s, made the first contact with her noted in an FDLE investigative report, phoning her for about five minutes just after 9 am. on May 29.
That evening, Foglesong and Iannotti spoke by phone for roughly a halfhour, after which he texted her the address of his office, apparently so she could pick up an envelope there that contained the roughly $1,200 in cash she needed to pay her filing fee and enter the race.
Iannotti was a political newcomer when she filed to run in the competitive state Senate race last year. Though she did not campaign, GOP operatives promoted her in advertisements that seemed designed to appeal to progressive voters.
The Central Florida race was one of three competitive state Senate races in 2020 where independent candidates without political experience filed to run but did not campaign. In one Miami-area race, former state Sen. Frank Artiles has been accused of paying his friend Alex Rodriguez nearly $45,000 to run.
Rodriguez, who drew more than 6,000 votes in an election the Republican candidate won by 32, accepted a plea agreement last year and agreed to testify in the state’s case against Artiles, who has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in September.
Artiles was overheard bragging about his role in the South Florida scheme at Brodeur’s election night party.
A group of political consultants who orchestrated the ad campaign that promoted Iannotti and the other independent candidates specifically discussed the Central Florida contest, according to text messages obtained by the Sentinel last year.
Ryan Tyson, a former vice president and political advisor to Associated Industries of Florida, noted in the texts from September 2020 that polls showed Brodeur had the lead in the race but the “atmosphere is bad.”
“I’m so nervous for Jason,” he wrote.
Tyson is the executive director for “Let’s Preserve the American Dream,” a dark-money non-profit organization that gave $600,000 to another nonprofit called “Grow United.” That money was used to pay for the advertising blitz championing Iannotti and the other independent candidates with mailers proclaiming their concern for issues like climate change and health care.
Brodeur is seeking re-election in Senate District 10, which like his current district i ncludes Seminole County but also part of Orange. Democrat Joy Goff-Marcil, a former Maitland City Council member and current Florida House member, has filed to challenge him.