Former Florida Senator Found Guilty in ‘Ghost Candidates’ Scandal – Mother Jones

This story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that examines the impact of powerful interests impeding climate action.

Former Florida State Senator Frank Artiles was convicted by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court jury on Monday evening, the latest fallout from the state’s 2020 “ghost candidate” scandal.

Artiles was convicted of three felonies related to $44,000 payments to Alex Rodriguez, a nonpartisan candidate whose role was to take votes from Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, the Democratic incumbent. The six-person jury deliberated for seven hours before reaching a verdict. Artiles was acquitted of a fourth count of aiding and abetting false voter registration. Artiles sat with a straight face as the guilty verdicts were read.

“They won. They were successful. They defeated JJR,” Public Corruption Prosecutor Tim VanderGiesen said in his opening speech. “They defeated an incumbent president named Rodriguez.”

“They stole the election,” he said.

Artiles’ defense attorney, Frank Quintero, reminded jurors that ghost candidates are legal “as long as Florida election law is not violated.”

But that’s what the jury found.

The term “ghost candidate” is used to describe a candidate who has no chance of winning but runs away to harm the real candidate’s chances. Ghost candidate Rodriguez participated in an opaquely financed 501(c)(4) – or “dark money” – venture facilitated by consultants working for Florida Power & Light, a subsidiary of utility conglomerate NextEra.

Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy, who was never charged with wrongdoing, ordered his subordinates to “make (Sen. Rodriguez’s) life hell.” Silagy retired abruptly in January 2023 following reports by Floodlight and its media partners about FPL’s involvement in the ghost candidate scandal.

Artiles was charged with conspiracy, making campaign contributions in excess of the $1,000 limit and “false swearing” for instructing Alex Rodriguez – who actually lived outside the 37th District – how to fill out paperwork to get on the ballot.

Artiles, who faced up to five years in prison on each charge, sat quietly throughout the two-week trial. He was accompanied by lawyers Quintero and Frank Quiñon. Behind him in the Miami courtroom was a rotating group of friends and family.

The charges stem from an effort to achieve a Republican majority in the Florida Senate by fielding three ghost candidates to siphon votes from Democratic candidates in key 2020 races. According to reports by Floodlight and other news outlets, the spoiler candidates were supported in part by a number of nonprofit organizations controlled by Jeff Pitts, then-CEO of Matrix LLC, a consulting firm working for Florida Power & Light.

The nonprofits in question are 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose the identities of their donors, and prosecutors were unable to trace the original source of the money. On September 27, Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon dismissed a shareholder lawsuit accusing FPL’s parent company, NextEra Energy, of making misleading statements about its political activities.

From the utility’s perspective, as we noted in our earlier in-depth history of the scandal, expanding GOP dominance – in any way – would help advance the utility’s legislative priorities:

These priorities included avoiding liability for damages related to power outages following Hurricane Irma; the removal of J.R. Kelly, the state’s longtime (unsympathetic) consumer services regulator; and gaining approval from the Senate Public Utilities Committee for the largest electric rate increase in Florida history.

Sen. Rodriguez’s defeat had the added benefit of striking in the lap of one of the state’s most prominent advocates of rooftop solar installations that reduce carbon emissions and lower utility bills – and against whom FPL had waged a decade-long counterinsurgency campaign.

He was defeated by 32 votes by Ileana Garcia, founder of Latinas for Trump.

Prosecutors said consultants involved in the scandal withheld documentation that had been subpoenaed. Key evidence in the form of hundreds of text messages between Artiles and Rodriguez was also lost.

Much of the trial revolved around the credibility of the state’s main witness, ghost candidate Alex Rodriguez, who admitted during questioning that he had a hard time dealing with the truth. To bolster his credibility, prosecutors launched a broader effort to influence the 2020 election.

Their first witness was the reticent Pat Bainter, a North Florida peanut farmer and influential operative of the state Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In pretrial testimony, Bainter, whose firm Data Targeting worked for GOP candidates, admitted he paid Artiles $15,000 a month for six months for field research in the District 37 race, including running a spoiler candidate. Bainter also admitted that he sent a non-binding payment of $100,000 to a non-profit organization operating under s. 501(c)(4) controlled by Artiles.

Testimony and evidence presented at trial showed that Bainter met with campaign consultants Artiles and Garcia, who had a business relationship with Pitts, then-CEO of Matrix.

Garcia’s campaign manager testified that Bainter held the purse strings for this campaign. Bainter also testified that his firm worked with Garcia’s campaign.

Rodriguez took the stand late in the fourth day of the trial. Prosecutor VanderGiesen showed him the totals from the 2020 race, in which he won 6,000. votes.

“Did you come honestly to get these votes?”

“No,” Rodriguez replied.

Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to election-related charges and served six months of house arrest and three years of probation, also testified that Artiles offered him $50,000 to run as a spoiler: $25,000 before the election and $25,000 after the election.

But he feared Artiles would never follow through on his promise to pay, so he “fabricated” a series of business deals involving construction equipment, diesel engines and Covid masks to extort money from Artiles. Rodriguez testified that he asked Artiles for help with rent and tuition at his daughter’s private school.

At one point, he admitted, he made up a story about a Range Rover he was going to buy at an auction for Artiles by asking the former state senator to pay $10,900.

The reason for all the scams? “I was afraid I wouldn’t get $50,000.”

The defense grilled Rodriguez, trying to show reasonable doubt about the nature of his transaction with Artiles. They portrayed the former senator as the victim of a series of fraudulent business deals and requests for financial assistance from Rodriguez. “The evidence will show that Rodriguez is a fraud, a professional fraudster and a pathological liar,” Quintero told jurors.

At the stand, Rodriguez did not defend himself, answering Quintero’s increasingly emphatic questions in a quiet, monotone voice.

The key question posed by the defense was: Could the state conclusively prove that the payments at the heart of the case constituted illegal campaign contributions?

“There is no other explanation,” VanderGiesen said, “why the defendant gives tens of thousands of dollars to Alex Rodriguez.”

When approached by a Floodlight reporter, Rodriguez declined to speak on the record until after the trial. He took the reporter’s phone number and said he would call. He winked at the reporter as he descended the escalator.

The reporter also spoke with Artiles shortly before the sentencing. Artiles called the trial “a colossal waste of time.”

“The press will not report on what is really happening,” he said.

The reporter replied that he would be happy to write the whole story – if he ever managed to find out what exactly it was about.