Mystery group strikes settlement

Seeks to address accusations

The leader of a mysterious group that sent attacks last year in an important Central Florida state Senate race without ever disclosing its donors has struck a tentative deal to settle a complaint accusing his group of breaking state election laws.

The terms of the proposed “consent order” between Stephen Jones, the chairperson of Floridians for Equality and Justice, and the Florida Elections Commission are confidential for now. The commission — which is run by a panel appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — is scheduled to vote on the agreement at its meeting next week and the agreement will become public if it’s approved.

The Elections Commission hearing notice indicates that Jones is being represented by Richard Coates, a top Republican elections lawyer in Tallahassee. Coates did not respond to a request for comment.

Jones has repeatedly declined to comment.

Floridians for Equality and Justice surfaced last summer during the Democratic primary in Senate District 9 in Seminole and Volusia counties. Records show it spent at least $160,000 on ads that included mailers attacking Patricia Sigman, who was widely considered the strongest Democratic contender in the race, and promoting a lesser-known challenger as a more-progressive alternative.

The group engaged in some election activities — creating a website, emailing candidates, sending mail to voters — before registering with the state’s election division. And when it did register, the group claimed it began with a roughly $250,000 “starting balance,” rather than disclosing individual donors.

Sigman won the Democratic primary but went on to lose the high-stakes general election to Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford.

A Florida Democratic Party staffer filed the complaint with the Elections Commission, accusing Floridians for Equality and Justice of trying to influence an election without following public disclosure laws. Separately, Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo — whose name and picture were used in some of the group’s advertisements — has sued the group in a Miami court, in hopes of forcing it to reveal the true sources of its money.

Little was known during the election about Floridians for Equality and Justice, which listed its address as a box in a UPS Store in Miami and its chairperson as Jones, a person who election records showed had never led a state-level political committee before.

But the Orlando Sentinel reported in September that there is a 24-year-old Stephen Stafford Jones in Gainesville whose signature on a traffic court document matched the Stephen Jones signatures on Floridians for Equality and Justice’s election filings, according to a forensic document examiner.

That Stephen Jones is the son of William Stafford Jones, a prominent political consultant in Gainesville who has done work with Data Targeting Inc. — the Gainesville-based firm that oversaw Senate Republican campaigns across Florida last year.

Following the Sentinel’s report, Taddeo sought and was granted more time to serve her lawsuit, which had previously been stymied by process servers’ inability to find Floridians for Equality and Justice’s chair. Records show that a

Stephen Jones in Gainesville has since been served.

Though Floridians for Equality and Justice engaged in a Democratic primary election and publicly claimed to be progressive — on its website, the group said its mission was “to educate and highlight dynamic progressive issues across the state of Florida” — records have since shown extensive ties to Republican operatives.

For instance, Coates, the attorney representing Jones before the Election Commission, has represented Republican politicians across Florida. Election records show Coates’ law firm also did work for Brodeur during the 2020 election.

In addition, Miami court records filed last week show that Jones and Floridians for Equality and Justice have also retained another prominent Republican lawyer to represent them in the civil lawsuit: Ben Gibson, a Tallahassee attorney who was general counsel to the Republican Party of Florida during the 2020 elections and is currently serving as one of DeSantis’ appointees to the State Board of Education.

And election records show that Floridians for Equality and Justice spent most of its money through a business with a name that suggested it was aligned with Democrats — “Victory Blue Group LLC” — but which corporate records show had been set up by another Republican attorney who has represented executives at Data Targeting.

Like Coates’ law firm, election records show Data Targeting also worked directly on Brodeur’s campaign.

The Florida Elections Commission is scheduled the consider the proposed settlement with Jones on Tuesday. The group is expected to respond to the civil lawsuit in Miami by Nov. 24.

Though Floridians for

Equality and Justice disappeared after the primary, another Republican-linked group surfaced in the Senate District 9 general election and engaged in similar tactics.

A political committee that records show was led by Republican strategists in Tallahassee and funded by a dark-money nonprofit spent $180,000 promoting Jestine Iannotti, an independent candidate who did no campaigning herself, with ads that appeared designed to appeal to Democratic-leaning voters.

Though Iannotti was a mystery to most voters, she personally knew a Seminole County Republican activist who works for Brodeur at the Seminole County Chamber of Commerce. And she had help from a controversial local political consultant who also supported Brodeur’s Senate campaign.

Iannotti was one of three independent “ghost” candidates who were promoted by the same GOP strategists and financed by the same dark-money source in key Senate races around Florida — all of which were ultimately won by Republicans, helping the GOP retain its majority in the 40-member Florida Senate.

One of those independent candidates, who ran in South Florida’s District 37, has since pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe from former state lawmaker Frank Artiles in a vote siphoning scheme.

No one has been charged in the other two races, though the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently said it had opened a preliminary investigation into the District 9 contest. And the Miami prosecutors who charged Artiles and spoiler candidate Alex Rodriguez said recently that their probe is “still ongoing.”