Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Interviews examine Artiles’ boasts
Former state Sen. Frank Artiles was at an election night party last November, watching returns on the Department of State’s website, when he began pointing emphatically at the screen, according to a lobbyist who said she’d known him since his time as a lawmaker.
Though the party was in Lake Mary for the campaign of now-Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford, they were looking at results for the Miami-area District 37 race, where it appeared Republican Ileana Garcia had a strong chance to upset incumbent Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.
“That’s me,” Artiles said, according to testimony health insurance industry lobbyist Stephanie Smith later gave to a South Florida public corruption prosecutor.
“That’s all me.”
Statements given by Smith and others to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office shed new light into Artiles’ alleged boasts about his role in District 37. Prosecutors say Artiles bribed an independent candidate to enter the race to siphon votes from Rodriguez and help Garcia win.
The interviews released Wednesday also reveal the degree to which Democrats may have undermined themselves in that and two other key state Senate races by directing funds to Grow United, a darkmoney nonprofit based out of a UPS Store in Denver that spent $550,000 influencing the campaigns.
The group worked with Republican strategists to promote independents in all three races — including in District 9, the Central Florida race Brodeur won — with ads seemingly tailored to siphon votes away from Democratic candidates.
The interviews, conducted by prosecutor Tim VanderGiesen, are part of a still-ongoing investigation that has already netted a guilty plea from the candidate Artiles is accused of bribing and which records show has since expanded to examine a network of darkmoney groups and politically connected figures.
Artiles, a former state lawmaker-turned-consultant, has pleaded not guilty.
The independent from the District 37 race, Alex Rodriguez, agreed to cooperate in the investigation as part of a plea deal. No one has been charged in the District 9 race, though the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently confirmed a preliminary investigation into it.
’He had to brag’
The independent so-called “ghost” candidates in Senate districts 9, 37 and 39 followed the same profile: They didn’t campaign or grant interviews but were promoted as progressives by ad campaigns Grow United funded through a pair of Republican-linked political committees.
At Brodeur’s party, held at Irish restaurant Liam Fitzpatrick’s, Smith said Artiles boasted “this is a tactic or this is an old trick in the book or this is something I’ve used in campaigns over time. So it was very clear to me what he meant. He meant that ‘I’m the reason that this race was won.’ ”
Smith, who declined to comment when reached Wednesday, in her interview with VanderGiesen recalled glancing across the table at a friend and exchanging glances she took to mean, “Is he crazy?”
“Why would he just say that out loud? And that crowd just kind of shakes its head because he’s drinking, and he’s very cocky. He’s proud, right?” Smith said. “This race was tight, and right when he pointed, it was turning, right? It was becoming clear that [Garcia] was going to win.
“And I think he just couldn’t help himself. He had to brag.”
After the Miami Herald published an account of Artiles’ boasting, Smith said he called her insisting he’d never said what had been reported and demanding she sign a document attesting to that.
She said he hurled epithets at her, demanding to know if she was responsible for the story.
Asked if she felt threatened, Smith said, “A little.”
“He’s a bully,” she told investigators. “I was scared for sure. … Not scared like he was going to beat me up, but... I just didn’t want him ruining my name, my reputation.”
Other attendees at the party who were interviewed by VanderGiesen said they didn’t hear Artiles’ alleged boasts but described being pressured after the Herald report to sign affidavits denying he’d claimed responsibility for Garcia’s upset victory.
His emails soliciting others to vouch for him caught the attention of investigators.
William Rodriguez, a consultant with the lobbying firm Corcoran Partners who described himself as Artiles’ friend, told VanderGiesen he didn’t hear Artiles talk about the Miami-area race but received an email about a month after the election with an affidavit attached.
“When I saw the email, I literally looked at the email and I thought, ‘Frank, why are you involving me? Why are you putting me in your messes?’ ” Rodriguez told prosecutors.
Lauren Gallo, the regional government affairs director for Florida Realtors and another Brodeur party attendee, said she wasn’t even in the back-room area where Artiles is alleged to have made the boasts but still had an affidavit arrive in her email inbox soon after.
“It basically just stated that I was there [and] I did not hear him say anything that the Miami Herald had accused him of saying,” said Gallo, who added she did not sign the document.
Progressive group funded Grow United
The interviews released Wednesday also show prosecutors are tracing the origins of money directed to Grow United, the dark-money nonprofit that backed all three independents in the “ghost” candidate scandal.
Josh Weierbach, the executive director of the nonprofit Florida Watch Inc., was asked by VanderGiesen to explain a $115,000 transfer the progressive advocacy group made to Grow United last October.
Weierbach said Florida Watch, which is considered a “social welfare organization,” had been raising money to support Senate Democrats but was butting up against a cap on the amount it could legally spend on political advocacy. That’s when he said Dan Newman, a longtime Democratic fundraiser, suggested funneling the money to Grow United.
Weierbach said he trusted Newman to ensure the money would be spent on backing Democrats. But VanderGiesen questioned why Florida Watch sent its money to a group that ultimately helped Republicans get elected.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Grow
United ended up being used to fund some organizations that ran against Democratic candidates. …. I happen to know for a fact that Grow United supported political committees that did not have the same interest that you guys did,” VanderGiesen said. “… Your trust was based solely on what Dan Newman was saying?”
“Yes,” Weierbach replied. Weierbach said his group was primarily interested in helping Democrats win Senate District 9, in Central Florida, and 39, in South Florida — two races in which Grow United backed independent candidates with mailers apparently worded to siphon votes away from Democrats.
He said Florida Watch considered the incumbent Democrat in District 37 to be “safe.” Garcia, the Republican, ultimately won by 32 votes.
Weierbach said Newman also told him to send Florida Watch money through two other nonprofits: “The People Over Profits Florida Inc.,” founded by Sean Shaw, a former Democratic lawmaker and candidate for attorney general; and “A Better Miami Dade Inc.,” which is controlled by Democratic consultants.
The Orlando Sentinel recently reported the two groups gave a combined $722,500 to Grow United in 2020.
Neither would say where the money they gave Grow United came from. They do not have to disclose their own donors but do have to report transfers to other nonprofits.
Newman told the Sentinel in September he “collaborated with multiple progressive donors” to raise money into Grow United and was “completely shocked” to learn the nonprofit was involved in the independent candidate strategy that boosted Republicans.
“Only through news articles that have come out since the 2020 election did I learn other donors were also working with Grow United to support sham candidates,” Newman said.
Gym worker helped set up committees
The political committees into which Grow United directed a half-million dollars to boost the “ghost” candidates — “The Truth” and “Our Florida” — were both run by then-Republican political consultant Alex Alvarado, according to previously released records.
But in filings to the state, other names were listed as chairing each group. The South Florida investigation has since revealed Alvarado recruited and paid young women to front each entity, including his former roommate and the pregnant friend of a lobbyist.
Andrea Roca, a 26-yearold woman who works at a Miami-area gym, in a newly released interview told VanderGiesen she, too, was paid by Alvarado to help him set up his political committees.
She told investigators she opened a UPS box that served as the address for Our Florida, which Alvarado used to send ads promoting independent candidates in two South Florida races, Districts 37 and 39.
Roca’s name also appeared on documents for Liberate Florida, another committee controlled by Alvarado. She told investigators she was paid a total of $1,950 in exchange for opening the mailboxes and putting her name on the committee documents.
Alvarado, then a registered Republican, also orchestrated an advertising campaign championing Jestine Iannotti, the independent candidate in the Senate District 9 race won by Brodeur.
Roca told investigators she had known Alvarado’s wife since she was four years old and met Alvarado about eight years ago while they were students at the University of Central Florida.
Roca said she and Alvarado are “very good friends” and, while she didn’t understand the significance of the political committees, she didn’t hesitate to put her name on documents when asked because of their friendship.
When investigators pointed out that Roca’s signature appeared different on various documents, Roca said she didn’t remember signing them all. She said at least one appeared to have a “very old” version of her signature and said she does not sign her name that way anymore.
The two other young women whose names appear on paperwork for Alvarado’s committees, Hailey DeFilippis and Sierra Olive, also told investigators their signatures appeared on documents they did not sign.
Alvarado, who recently changed his voter registration from Republican to the Independent Party of Florida, was described by VanderGiesen in his interview with DeFillippis as a “possible subject” of the investigation but has not been charged with any crime.
In a statement to the Sentinel in September, Alvarado’s attorney, Marco A. Quesada of Miami, denied his client had broken any laws.
“Mr. Alvarado has not committed any violation of the law,” Quesada said. “Unfortunately, the media continues to write articles referencing Mr. Alvarado with innuendos about possible wrongdoings, which he unequivocally denies.”