South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Records shed light on ‘dark money’ nonprofit
Big-business group linked to Florida elections probe
Investigators searching for the source of more than half-a-million dollars spent last year in support of spoiler candidates that helped Republicans win three key state Senate races have obtained bank records for an organization tied to a big-business lobbying group funded by companies such as Florida Power & Light, Walt Disney World and U.S. Sugar Corp.
The records were obtained as part of a criminal case in Miami, where prosecutors have charged former Republican state Sen. Frank Artiles with five felonies. Authorities say Artiles paid a financially struggling friend,
Alexis Pedro Rodriguez, to run as an independent candidate in a state Senate race in South Florida. Rodriguez has also been charged in the case.
Rodriguez was one of three mysterious no-party candidates supported by the same big-money donor who ran in highly competitive state Senate elections last fall — including a Senate race in Central Florida won by Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford.
Only Artiles and Rodriguez have been accused of crimes. But all three no-party candidates were supported by nearly identical advertisements that appeared designed to siphon votes from Democrats and were financed with $550,000 in donations from a nonprofit organization that did not disclose its own donors.
Court filings in the Artiles case show that investigators recently obtained the bank records of yet another darkmoney nonprofit — but one with ties to the big business lobbying group Associated Industries of Florida (AIF).
That organization is known as “Let’s Preserve the American Dream,” and it is run by a longtime pollster and political strategist for AIF. Let’s Preserve the American Dream operates out of AIF’s headquarters inside a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Tallahassee.
Ed Griffith, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, declined to say why investigators obtained Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s bank records.
“As an ongoing criminal case, it would be inappropriate to discuss the case details and our preparation for the pending criminal trial,” Griffith said.
Ryan Tyson, the executive director of Let’s Preserve the American Dream, said he did not know investigators had obtained the records until he was contacted by the Orlando Sentinel.
Tyson is a former vice president at AIF who now works for the business lobbying group as a contractor leading AIF’s political council. Tyson said Let’s Preserve the American Dream, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit, rents office space from AIF but that the two organizations do not coordinate with each other.
“AIF has no control or knowledge of our activities around the country,” Tyson said. He declined to comment further.
Top consulting firm also subpoenaed
AIF is run by Tom Feeney, the former Republican state House speaker and U.S. congressman from Central Florida who was hired by the business lobbying group after he lost reelection to the U.S. House following a national lobbying scandal. Feeney did not respond to requests for comment.
Obtaining Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s bank records is the latest sign that the Artiles investigation is reaching into the highest echelons of Florida Republican politics.
For instance, Griffith said that Miami prosecutors have spoken with federal investigators in Washington, where U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz is reportedly under investigation in a sex-trafficking and public-corruption probe that, according to the New York Times, may also overlap with the Florida elections probe. Griffith declined to elaborate on those discussions; Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.
And in addition to Let’s Preserve the American Dream, court filings show that prosecutors have also subpoenaed emails, invoices and contracts between Artiles and Data Targeting Inc. — a Gainesville-based political consulting firm that runs campaigns for Senate Republican leadership. The Data Targeting subpoena was first reported by the Miami Herald.
During last year’s elections, Data Targeting worked directly with Senate President Wilton Simpson, a Republican from Pasco County who was in charge of GOP Senate campaigns. Records show the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Simpson led, paid Data Targeting more than $7 million during the 2020 election cycle.
Records show Data Targeting was involved with each of the three Senate races in which the involvement of no-party candidates has drawn scrutiny: Senate District 9 in Seminole and Volusia counties, which was won by Brodeur; Senate District 37 in Miami, won by Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia; and Senate District
39 in Miami and Monroe counties, won by Republican Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez.
Artiles and Alexis Rodriguez were charged in connection with District
37, where Garcia defeated a Democratic incumbent by
32 votes out of more than
210,000 cast. Both have plead not guilty.
A spokesperson for Simpson and the Senate Republican campaign committee did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did representatives for Data Targeting.
One of the biggest mysteries in the Senate election controversy is the source of the $550,000 that was spent in support of the three no-party candidates. Artiles also allegedly promised to pay Rodriguez $50,000, telling his friend that “we have money in an account,” according to an arrest warrant.
Election records show that the $550,000 was split between two now-defunct political committees. One of those committees paid for mail supporting Jestine Iannotti, the no-party candidate who ran in Brodeur’s race in Central Florida. The other paid for mail supporting Rodriguez and the other no-party candidate in the two South Florida Senate races.
Phone records from Alex Alvarado, a Republican consultant who was paid last year by groups linked to AIF and was involved in sending out the mailers, were also subpoenaed by the South Florida prosecutors, records show. Alvarado declined to comment.
Those political committees initially reported the source of their donations as a nonprofit named “Proclivity,” whose address is a box in a UPS store in Atlanta. But both later changed their reports to say the money came from a different nonprofit, “Grow United,” reportedly run by the same agent but from a UPS box in Denver. Records suggest prosecutors in the Artiles case have obtained the mailbox service agreements for both Proclivity and Grow United.
Clues shed light on ‘dark money’
Like Proclivity and Grow United, Let’s Preserve the American Dream is a so-called “dark money” group because it does not disclose its donors. But there are some clues.
For instance, between 2014 and 2016, a political committee with the same name, run by the same person and using the same address was organized at the state level and did disclose its donors. Those donors included Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility company, and phosphate giant Mosaic Co.
In addition, tax records show that in 2017 a utility industry-backed group known as Consumers for Smart Solar that had been created in support of an unsuccessful constitutional
amendment transferred its leftover money — more than $420,000 — to Let’s Preserve the American Dream.
Chris McGrath, a spokesperson for FPL, declined to say when the company had last donated to Let’s Preserve the American Dream, whether FPL had ever donated to Grow United, or whether anyone from FPL played a role supporting any of the no-party candidates in the three Senate races.
“FPL does not discuss individual contributions, however all of our corporate political and charitable contributions comply with all applicable laws and are properly disclosed,” McGrath said.
A spokesman for Mosaic did not respond to requests for comment.
Most of the evidence that prosecutors have obtained in the Artiles investigation — including Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s bank records and Data Targeting’s communications with Artiles — remains under seal.
That’s because attorneys for Artiles have asked a judge to keep key pieces of that evidence shielded from public view, arguing that it would be an “impossibility” for the lawmaker-turned-lobbyist to receive a fair trial after the expected media coverage of the evidence. The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing on Artiles’ request for next week.
While all of the criminal charges filed in the case relate only to one of the three Senate races, court records suggest prosecutors are also reviewing records related to the other races — including the one in which Brodeur defeated Democrat Patricia Sigman.
For instance, the records show that investigators have obtained election records for “The Truth,” the political committee that paid for mail supporting Iannotti, the no-party candidate who ran in the Brodeur-Sigman race.
Investigators have also interviewed Hailey DeFilippis, a 25-year-old registered Republican from Clearwater who was listed in election records as the chairperson, treasurer and registered agent for The Truth. Paperwork submitted to the Florida Department of State for The Truth list a Winter Springs home as DeFilippis’ address, but it’s not clear that she ever lived there.
Brodeur and Artiles are friends. Artiles was in Central Florida at Brodeur’s election-night party where he was overheard boasting about his role in the Senate District 37 race, according to a report in the Herald.
DeFilippis could not be reached for comment. The Sentinel has not been able to reach Iannotti, who had help in launching her candidacy from a controversial local political consultant and who has since moved to Sweden, for comment since the election.
She wrote in a statement emailed to the Sentinel last September that she decided to run for office because she had “a great concern for the tenor and tone of the current political debate.”
Brodeur has said he did not know anything about Iannotti’s campaign or who was behind it.
But oddities surrounding that race continue to emerge. This week, one of the only direct donors to Iannotti’s campaign told the Sentinel that he didn’t “talk to reporters” when one visited his home in west Seminole County.
“Sorry, I don’t know anything,” said Steven Smith, who according to campaign finance reports gave Iannotti’s campaign $200 last June.
Another man listed as an Iannotti contributor, Todd Karvoski, told a Sentinel reporter who visited his MetroWest apartment in April that he’d never heard of Iannotti and didn’t give money to her campaign.
Yet the day the Sentinel published a story with Karvoski’s comments, someone claiming to be Karvoski emailed the newspaper saying he was mistaken and now remembered making the $100 contribution. But Karvoski never responded to a phone call from a reporter trying to confirm he sent that email and, when the reporter visited his apartment again, a woman who came to the door said he was not home.
Sigman said she’s hopeful investigators will take a closer look at all three Senate races.
“It certainly looks like it was a coordinated effort across the state and it certainly needs to be exposed for what it is,” Sigman said.