Orlando man says he didn’t contribute to mysterious candidate in tight state Senate race
An Orlando man listed in state records as one of just four contributors to an independent candidate in last year’s hotly contested Florida Senate District 9 race says he’d never heard of her and didn’t give money to her campaign.
Jestine Iannotti, who did no campaigning and repeatedly declined interview requests, reported raising just $700 from four individuals, including one who told an Orlando Sentinel reporter this week he wasn’t registered to vote and had never made any political contributions. He said he didn’t know that a Division of Elections website lists his name and home address as the source of a $100 donation to Iannotti until a reporter showed it to him.
“I don’t know who she is,” Todd Karvoski told the reporter who visited his Orlando apartment.
snip===============================================================================
The Senate race in Seminole and Volusia counties featured a dark money group that funded a political committee that blanketed homes in Seminole and west Volusia counties urging residents to vote for her. Democratic state senators and members of Congress have called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the source of the money.
The group, Atlanta-based Proclivity, sent $550,000 to two committees that mailed ads to voters in three Florida Senate districts, including District 9. All of the ads touted shadowy NPA candidates with promises that might appeal to liberal voters, saying the independents would “fight climate change,” “hold the police accountable,” and “guarantee a living wage.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle’s office filed charges last month against the NPA candidate in one of the South Florida races, Alex Rodriguez, and former state Sen. Frank Artiles, who is accused of paying nearly $45,000 to Rodriguez to file to run for the Senate District 37 race as a “ghost candidate.”
snip==============================================================================
Iannotti’s other contributors included Eric Foglesong, who was arrested in 2019 after he was accused of stealing $20,000 from a political action committee related to Orange County Sheriff John Mina. He pleaded guilty to grand theft, a third-degree felony, in February 2020.
Foglesong, who couldn’t be reached for this story and has declined to comment on the matter in the past, is a registered Democrat. But in 2019, he contributed $1,000 to Brodeur, who returned the money a couple of weeks later. Last June, he gave $300 to Iannotti, records show.
Iannotti also reported a $200 contribution from Steven Smith of Seminole County. A woman who answered the door at Smith’s apartment and identified herself as his mother said she didn’t think her son gave money to any political candidates, saying “he has always had limited funds.”
snip==============================================================================
Filing false campaign finance disclosure reports, including reports that contain false information about contributors’ identities, is illegal, said Michael Morley, an associate professor of law at Florida State University.
“Outright fraud about contributors’ identities is generally rare; accidental omissions or other sorts of administrative or data entry mistakes can sometimes happen, particularly for campaigns collecting substantial amounts of money or inexperienced filers,” Morley wrote in an email to the Sentinel.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-prem-ne-jestine-iannotti-sweden-20210408-x574dxn4qndgfot6y4gwh5hkte-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
