Gillum settles ethics case with $5K fine
In return, attorney agrees to drop four of five charges
TALLAHASSEE — Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum agreed Wednesday to pay a $5,000 fine in a settlement reached with a state ethics-commission attorney, ending a case that played a key role in Gillum’s unsuccessful run for Florida governor.
In return, the attorney agreed to drop four of five charges of ethics violations related to trips Gillum took to Costa Rica and New York, a boat ride around the Statue of Liberty and a ticket to the Broadway hit “Hamilton.”
The Florida Commission on Ethics’ advocate, Elizabeth A. Miller, told Administrative Law Judge E. Gary Early that she and Gillum’s lawyer, Barry Richard, had reached an “amicable settlement agreement.”
“Obviously, this has taken a lot of time and energy from my wife, myself, our family,’’ Gillum said. “We came prepared today to say fully what our experience has been and what the truth of the matter is.”
In January, the ethics commission unanimously found probable cause that Gillum, as Tallahassee mayor, violated state ethics laws for allegedly accepting gifts from Tallahassee entrepreneur Adam Corey and undercover FBI agents posing as developers as part of a federal investigation into corruption.
Corey had been a close friend of Gillum and lobbied city officials.
The commission found probable cause that Gillum accepted gifts with a value of more than $100 from a lobbyist or vendor of the city and failed to report the gifts.
The accusations against Gillum became a theme for now-Gov. Ron DeSantis during a heated campaign leading to November’s election, in which the Republican narrowly edged out Gillum, a Democrat.
Richard stressed that Gillum did not request the settlement but had entered into negotiations with Miller at the judge’s behest.
Richard said the settlement doesn’t specify which of the gifts Gillum agreed to have accepted, “but from Mayor Gillum’s standpoint it was the boat ride around the Statue of Liberty that he took
with people that were his friends, and it just didn’t occur to him that one of them was also a lobbyist and that he wasn’t supposed to accept the gifts.”
Later Wednesday, Gillum issued a statement describing the end of the case as “vindication. The results confirm what I’ve said all along — the facts matter and I never knowingly violated any ethics laws.”
In brief remarks to Early, Miller did not elaborate on what prompted the settlement. But the attorney’s case hinged on an elusive Corey, who was involved in the New York and Costa Rica trips.
Gilllum said he paid Corey, who made the arrangements for a luxury villa, $480 in cash, or $120 per night, to cover his and his wife’s share of the Costa Rica trip.
Corey, who submitted an affidavit to the ethics commission but refused to appear before the panel because he had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in a city corruption probe, swore that he never received any money from his onetime pal.
But Corey has been out of the country, and efforts to get him to testify in the administrative-law case were unsuccessful, according to documents filed in the case. Miller asked Early to postpone the hearing until August because Corey’s lawyer, Chris Kise, had a “serious cardiac condition” that left him temporarily unable to work.
While Corey was on Miller’s witness list for the hearing that was scheduled to last up to three days, it is unknown whether he is back in the country or would have appeared in court.