ORLANDO, Fla. — Jestine Iannotti, one of three “ghost” candidates who ran as independents for Florida Senate seats in 2020, has been arrested on several criminal charges, alongside a political consultant involved in launching her campaign and Seminole County’s Republican Party chairman.
The office of Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer announced the charges against Iannotti, James “Eric” Foglesong and Benjamin Paris on Tuesday, which the agency said stemmed from an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Iannotti faces six charges including the commission of a false or fraudulent act, accepting excessive contributions from a single contributor, perjury, false reporting and accepting a contribution in the name of another.
According to the FDLE, she illegally accepted a $1,200 cash donation from Foglesong to support her campaign, and the pair also falsely identified other contributors who had not actually donated — including Paris’ cousin.
Foglesong, a longtime Central Florida political operative, faces five counts: making two or more contributions through or in the name of another, the commission of a false or fraudulent act, unlawful use of a communication device, excessive contributions and false reporting.
Paris, the Seminole GOP chair and a former Longwood mayor, faces a single count of making a contribution through or in the name of another. Paris works for the Seminole County Chamber of Commerce, which is led by Sen. Jason Brodeur, who won the election in which Iannotti ran in 2020.
“Some NPA candidates, commonly referred to as ‘ghost’ candidates, have been used by political parties as a way to close elections or siphon off votes. While not illegal per se, many have questioned the ethics of the practice,” Archer said in a statement. “However, when that candidate and the partisan political operatives involved violate election finance laws by illegally funding those races and filing false reports, it is the responsibility of government to act.”
Said FDLE Acting Commissioner Mark Glass, “Lying about campaign donations is unacceptable because it provides an unfair advantage to the candidate. Protecting the integrity of our elections is a top priority in Florida, and that includes making sure candidates follow the laws.”
As of noon, Foglesong was the only one of the three listed as having been booked into the Seminole County jail. His bail was listed at $10,000.
Alan Bryd, a spokesman for the Seminole County Chamber, said Tuesday morning that the group is “reviewing” the charge against Paris and he likely would be able to comment further later in the day.
Iannotti, a former substitute teacher for the Seminole County school district, was a political newcomer when she filed to run as an independent in Senate District 9. After qualifying for the highly competitive race, she spent several weeks in Sweden and refused to speak to reporters.
Her candidacy featured other red flags, including that another of her listed donors, Todd Karvoski, denied having given money to her campaign.
Iannotti later moved to Sweden after the election.
Her candidacy — and those of two South Florida candidates who also did no campaigning — was promoted by a pair of entities chaired by then-GOP political consultant Alex Alvarado, with ads Miami prosecutors have said were tailored to siphon votes from the Democrats in each race.
A flood of mailers to Seminole and Volusia voters promoted independent candidate Jestine Iannotti as a progressive political outsider. But the ad campaign was fueled by dark money, apparently as part of a spoiler scheme to help Republicans win key state Senate seats.
Brodeur, a Sanford Republican, won the District 9 race by 7,644 votes, while Iannotti received more than 5,000 votes.
Alvarado has been notified by South Florida prosecutors that he is a target of their investigation, which has already led to the indictment of ex-lawmaker Frank Artiles, who’s accused of bribing another of the “ghost” candidates, his friend Alex Rodriguez, to run in Miami’s Senate District 37.
Rodriguez pleaded guilty in August, while Artiles, who has pleaded not guilty, is still awaiting trial.
Also informed they were targets of Miami prosecutors: Richard Alexander, whose nonprofit Grow United funded Alvarado’s committees; Let’s Preserve the American Dream, a nonprofit that gave Grow United money it used in the scheme and former Democratic strategist Dan Newman.
Foglesong’s apparent involvement in Iannotti’s candidacy was exposed by a series of Orlando Sentinel reports.
Foglesong was one of only four donors to Iannotti, contributing $300 to her campaign in June 2020. He also likely wrote the $1,187 check to the state’s elections division that paid the qualifying fee that same month, handwriting experts told the Sentinel last year.
The expenditures supporting Iannotti’s campaign came soon before Foglesong began falling behind on his home rent payments. At the time he had recently pleaded guilty to stealing money from a campaign he worked on two years earlier.
Foglesong refused to answer questions from the newspaper last year, accusing the Sentinel of attempting to “defame” him.
“I have a track record of supporting people, not parties, and I have never shied away from offering free advice or a helping hand,” he said in a written statement. “It’s fine to criticize my beliefs or my clients, but not to demonize me for representing their lawful interests.”
However, the Sentinel soon unearthed additional links between the consultant and the Iannotti campaign’s origins.
For example: An employee for The Whitehead Agency, an insurance firm in Altamonte Springs, notarized a key piece of Iannotti’s campaign paperwork June 12, 2020, the last day of the qualifying period.
Foglesong once had an office inside the building owned by The Whitehead Agency and is a friend and former neighbor of founder Mark Whitehead Jr.
Foglesong also once brought two women he’d met at a strip club and steakhouse in Casselberry back to that office “for a show,” according to an Altamonte Springs police report filed in May 2018, after Foglesong accused one of the women of attempting to extort him.
According to the FDLE, Paris’ role in the District 9 race was recruiting his cousin, Steven Smith, to pose as one of Iannotti’s four donors.
Smith told agents that he never wrote the $200 check attributed to him in Iannotti’s reports to the state but that Paris had called and asked to use his name on a donation to Iannotti.
“(Paris said he) wanted to donate to a friend’s campaign, but that he had already reached the campaign donation limits, so he wanted to know if he could make a donation in my name real quick … and that was the extent of all he asked for,” Smith told investigators, according to FDLE.
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