Miami police arrested former Republican state Sen. Frank Artiles on Thursday and charged him with orchestrating a plot to siphon votes from a sitting Democratic state senator by paying a person with an identical final identify to run a faux marketing campaign. The scheme appears to have labored: In November, the incumbent, José Javier Rodríguez, misplaced his seat by the extremely skinny margin of round 30 votes to his Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia. The person Artiles recruited to run as an unbiased—an auto components vendor named Alex Rodriguez, who didn’t reside within the district—picked up greater than 6,000 votes. (In his concession speech, José Javier Rodríguez referred to as for a full investigation into the race.)
In keeping with an arrest affidavit, Artiles paid Rodriguez, who he’d identified for greater than 20 years, $50,000 to enter the race. Rodriguez didn’t marketing campaign, reply to inquiries from the media, or do something past filling out the required types for his candidacy. The truth is, doing nothing in change for the money was a part of the pitch Artiles made to Rodriguez, the affidavit alleges.
However somebody did marketing campaign for Rodriguez. On October 2, a Florida political committee, Our Florida PC PAC, was created. The next day, somebody donated $370,000 to the PAC. It’s nonetheless unclear who made the contribution—initially, Our Florida listed an Atlanta-based LLC with no contact info because the donor, however in December, the PAC revised its paperwork to determine a distinct entity because the supply of the cash: Colorado-based Develop United, Inc. Days after the contribution was deposited, it was used to pay for mailers supporting Alex Rodriguez’s candidacy.
Investigators nonetheless don’t know who’s behind Develop United—its listed handle is a UPS retailer—however Alex Rodriguez was not the one mysterious candidate supported by the corporate. Develop United poured $180,000 into a distinct newly shaped PAC referred to as The Fact, which backed a girl named Jestine Iannotti in her state Senate marketing campaign towards one other sitting Democrat. Like Alex Rodriguez, Iannotti ran as an unbiased. She additionally had no prior political expertise and took no steps to marketing campaign, aside from submitting the paperwork to run. She gained 2 % of the vote in November; the Republican challenger prevailed within the race by a 3 % margin. Although Iannotti is white, mailers despatched by the PAC—and paid for with Develop United’s donation—used a inventory picture of a Black girl. Amongst different anodyne statements, the mailers stated Iannotti would assist get “particular curiosity cash out of politics.”
Rodriguez was arrested together with Artiles, and each males are going through felony expenses for unlawful marketing campaign donations and conspiracy. Rodriguez is cooperating with investigators, in line with his lawyer. (Iannotti has not been charged with any crime and it’s not clear if her candidacy is underneath investigation.) Artiles, who served within the Florida Home of Representatives for six years earlier than getting elected to the state Senate in 2016, beforehand made headlines in 2017 for a sequence of weird scandals. In a single incident, he referred to as two Black senate colleagues racial slurs whereas assembly with them at a bar. He later resigned his Senate seat after it was revealed that his marketing campaign committee had employed a Hooters calendar woman and a Playboy mannequin to work as consultants.