ORLANDO, Fla. — When state investigators delved into the finances of several entities tied to Florida’s 2020 “ghost” candidate scandal, they unearthed major cash contributions from some of the state’s biggest business interests, including an affiliate of the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
That entity, dubbed Secure Florida’s Future, contributed $630,000 late in the 2020 election cycle to a network of dark-money groups since subpoenaed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Bank records unearthed by the probe were obtained by the Orlando Sentinel this week.
The investigation emerged from reporting by the Sentinel and other news outlets on three independent “ghost” candidates who ran for three Florida Senate seats in 2020 and were promoted by an advertising blitz apparently meant to help Republicans win those races.
One of the Republicans who benefited was state Sen. Jason Brodeur, who was working for the Seminole County Chamber at the time of the 2020 election and won the race to represent the former Senate District 9, which included all of Seminole County and part of Volusia.
The newly disclosed records shed new light on how big business interests, like the sugar industry and Florida Power & Light, fuel dark money groups that work to sway elections behind the scenes.
Brodeur has long been a favorite of those businesses, which also supported his candidacy through his political committee. FPL, for instance, contributed $15,000 to his committee in 2019 and 2020 for his Senate election campaign. FPL and the sugar industry are also among the largest contributors to the Florida Chamber’s political committee, which gave generously to Brodeur’s campaign.
The $630,000 contribution from Secure Florida’s Future, a nonprofit chaired by Florida Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Mark Wilson, went to Foundation for a Safe Environment, another nonprofit run by Republican consultant Stafford Jones. It was recorded on Sept. 2, bank records show.
On Sept. 30, Jones’ nonprofit transferred the same sum to Let’s Preserve the American Dream, a nonprofit run by Ryan Tyson, a consultant with close ties to the state’s big business lobby, Associated Industries of Florida. One day earlier, Let’s Preserve reported a $600,000 contribution to a third nonprofit, Grow United, which spent the money on an ad blitz that promoted the “ghost” candidates to voters in Central and South Florida.
Wilson declined to say for what purpose the contribution from Secure Florida’s Future was intended. He said he was not aware of any investigation targeting the group. Jones said the contribution from Secure Florida’s Future was not related to the transfer to Tyson’s group.
“The contribution from Secure Florida’s Future had no bearing on and was not related to another contribution that we made almost a month later,” he wrote in an email.
Grow United was run by consultants working closely with FPL at the time of the 2020 election and, in addition to helping Brodeur, the spoiler candidate scheme helped oust one of the utility’s biggest critics in the Legislature. Nobody from FPL has been accused of wrongdoing and the utility has denied knowledge of the spoiler candidate scheme.
The power giant is not alone among Florida’s biggest companies in its connections to the network of politically active dark money groups.
The newly disclosed records show Foundation for a Safe Environment received $200,000 from U.S. Sugar less than a week before the November 2018 election. The next day, the nonprofit transferred the same amount to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Florida Senate Republicans.
A spokesperson for U.S. Sugar could not be reached for comment on Friday.
U.S. Sugar also supported Brodeur’s 2020 Senate campaign, contributing $10,000 to his committee in October 2019. During his first year in the Senate, Brodeur sponsored legislation that protects the agriculture industry from lawsuits related to health damage. That was a priority of the sugar industry, which has faced legal action from South Florida residents who say sugar cane burning caused them respiratory problems.
Brodeur was reelected to the state Senate in November but left his position at the Seminole County Chamber at the end of the year.
Five people have been charged in connection with the 2020 “ghost” candidate scheme. One, former candidate Alex Rodriguez, has pleaded guilty to charges he took nearly $45,000 to enter a Miami race. The man accused of bribing Rodriguez, former lawmaker Frank Artiles, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Artiles also was paid $15,000 by the Republican consulting firm Data Targeting to work on South Florida legislative races in 2020, according to records obtained by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
Another, former Seminole County GOP Chair Ben Paris, was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge that he caused his cousin’s name to appear falsely on independent candidate Jestine Iannotti’s campaign finance reports. Paris was working for Brodeur as a vice president at the Seminole County Chamber at the time of the election.
Iannotti and consultant Eric Foglesong have pleaded not guilty to charges they submitted false campaign contribution reports for Iannotti and are awaiting trial in Seminole County.
But the “ghost” candidate scheme isn’t the only way dark money groups funded by big business interests worked behind the scenes to help Brodeur, a former Florida House member, win a tight Senate race in 2020.
Secure Florida’s Future also indirectly provided the funding for a secretive political committee that didn’t disclose its donors. That entity, Floridians for Equality and Justice, spent more than $160,000 on mail ads slamming the Democratic front-runner in Brodeur’s race and urging primary voters to back an underdog candidate instead.
Floridians for Equality and Justice and its spending in the 2020 race was the subject of the FDLE probe that produced the bank records released this week. Banks for that committee, Secure Florida’s Future and Foundation for a Safe Environment were subpoenaed in the probe.
Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer declined to file charges based on the investigation. However, he said in a press release that state campaign laws “should mandate complete transparency and accountability” and urged lawmakers to address the loopholes that allow groups to hide the source of political contributions.
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