Judge shields former lawmaker’s contacts

Artiles accused of running ‘ghost’ candidate scheme

When state agents raided the home of former state Sen. Frank Artiles, after he was indicted on felony charges for his role in Florida’s 2020 “ghost” candidate scheme, they left with a cache of data that included years of communications related to his work as a political consultant.

Those emails, texts and other messages Artiles exchanged with other political insiders could have spilled into the open, providing a rare glimpse into the behind-thescenes workings of Florida politics as seen by the well-connected state lawmaker-turned-lobbyist.

Media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel, have fought for the records’ disclosure, citing state law that dictates, absent specific exemptions, evidence collected by prosecutors becomes available to the public once it’s handed over to the defense in a process called discovery.

But Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan has consistently

“What occurred with the ghost candidate scheme was one of the most complex political crimes in Florida’s history and I think citizens are entitled to know who was involved in this scheme.”

— Michael Barfield, Florida Center for Government Accountability

sought to limit the disclosures, citing the need to protect the privacy of Artiles’ business and personal contacts. On Tuesday, she issued a ruling declining to release a list of Artiles’ contacts stored on his phones and other personal devices — meaning even their names will remain secret.

“The court cannot and will not violate the privacy rights of innocent third parties who could fall victim by the publication of their personal information that may be purposefully or inadvertently be published in the media’s version of the story,” Fajardo Orshan wrote in the ruling.

Government watchdog groups, First Amendment advocates and lawyers who have watched the case differed on whether Fajardo Orshan has been right to shield the records

“What occurred with the ghost candidate scheme was one of the most complex political crimes in Florida’s history and I think citizens are entitled to know who was involved in this scheme,” said Michael Barfield, the director of public access for the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a government watchdog group.

Artiles is accused of paying his friend Alex Rodriguez nearly $45,000 to run as an independent in a South Florida Senate race in an attempt to confuse voters and siphon votes from the Democrat in the race, who had the same last name. Republican Ileana Garcia won the election by a 32-vote margin, while Rodriguez, who did not campaign, received more than 6,000 votes.

In March 2021, within days of Artiles’ arrest, his attorney filed a demand for discovery, triggering the process by which prosecutors hand over their evidence to the defense, while typically also filing an exhibit with the court listing what was disclosed.

In high-profile cases, media outlets often then request those evidence records from the State Attorney’s Office under Florida’s public records law, a process that typically does not involve the defense, let alone third parties named in the records.

But Artiles’ lawyer, Frank Quintero, has repeatedly objected to the public release of discovery records, arguing that prosecutors’ broad seizures included irrelevant information that might harm third parties. That prompted Fajardo Orshan to order that those third parties be notified and given the opportunity to object, which about two dozen individuals and entities did.

Attorneys representing the Orlando Sentinel, Miami Herald and other media organizations, who argued that Artiles’ communications and contact list should be disclosed publicly, contended that the judge should not shield the names of Artiles contacts simply because she worries they will be embarrassed to be associated with him publicly.

“The default is not secrecy,” said Dana McElroy, an attorney representing the Miami Herald and other media organizations. Adding public records exemptions to state law requires approval from two-thirds of the state legislature, she noted.

At times, Fajardo Orshan appeared to acknowledge the law called for disclosure, even as she ruled against it.

“I think what’s happened in this particular case is that, as usual, the law has not caught up to technology and there has to be some type of obvious limitation on the evidence that is seized,” she said at an April 28 hearing.

Powerful GOP consulting firm Data Targeting was paying Artiles $15,000 to work on South Florida Senate races in 2020, though the scope of Artiles’ duties is unclear. Artiles, who resigned from the Florida Senate in 2017 after going on a racist tirade against Black colleagues in a Tallahassee bar, now runs a political consulting business and has other ventures.

Because of that work, Artiles has a lengthy list of contacts, Fajardo Orshan noted in a hearing last month.

Prosecutors had confirmed none of Artiles contacts were part of their investigation or had “any reason for their names to be on law enforcement’s radar,” she wrote in her ruling. There was nothing in the records, which included emails and text messages, to indicate the people in Artiles’ contact list were involved in illegal activity with him, she added.

It’s not unusual for a judge to shield evidence from public disclosure in a high-profile case, said Scott Fingerhut, a professor at Florida International University’s law school. Florida’s Constitution guarantees its citizens the right to privacy and if Artiles’ contacts don’t have anything to do with the criminal case, they have “the right to be left alone,” he added.

Ken Paulson, the director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, noted a criminal defendant is entitled to a fair trial and judges have wide latitude to ensure they receive one. Their decisions sometimes conflict with demands for transparency from the public and press.

“The theory is, if it is relevant, it will be introduced in a very public way, in a very public trial,” Paulson said.

The Artiles case was assigned to Fajardo Orshan last year after a different judge oversaw the case for several months. Fajardo Orshan was appointed to the Miami-Dade Circuit Court in September by Gov. Ron DeSantis. She had previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida for about three years, selected for the post by former President Donald Trump.

In March, Fajardo Orshan agreed to release heavily redacted versions of bank records from Let’s Preserve the American Dream, a darkmoney non-profit connected to the case, after attorneys representing the organization argued that publicly revealing the group’s donors would harm their reputation and discourage future contributions.

Let’s Preserve the American Dream gave $600,000 to another dark money nonprofit that was used to pay for ads promoting Alex Rodriguez and independent candidates in two other state Senate races, including one in Central Florida.

Fajardo Orshan said the list of contributors represented a “who’s who of names, prominent names in our community,” and said she feared making them public would hurt innocent third parties.

Fingerhut, who has worked as a criminal defense attorney in South Florida, said he’s known Fajardo Orshan for many years and is confident that if she had detected any “smoking guns” in the records, she would have allowed them to be shared with the public.

Pamela Marsh, the president of the First Amendment Foundation, said she, too, was inclined to give the judge the benefit of the doubt.

“While the First Amendment Foundation is always on the side of openness and the tradition in criminal cases is open trials, having not reviewed what the judge has reviewed, I’m reluctant to second-guess the decision,” said Marsh, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.

But Barfield said courts should tend toward transparency and disclosure and Fajardo Orshan’s rulings do not square with that principle. The architects of the ghost candidate scheme purposely funneled contributions through various entities to conceal the source of the money, he noted, making it difficult to determine what is and is not connected.

“I long for the days when these issues were much clearer and the disclosure occurred,” Barfield said. “It seems like we’re going in the wrong direction when it comes to transparency in Florida.”