TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s public safety czar Larry Keefe was in San Antonio nearly two weeks before Gov. Ron DeSantis transported 48 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, and he may have traveled back to Florida with the migrants, records released late Friday suggest.
Those records also show Keefe coordinating the flights with DeSantis Chief of Staff James Uthmeier and politically connected contractor Vertol Systems in the weeks leading up to the operation, which is under criminal investigation by Texas and federal authorities.
Keefe, who draws a state salary of $131,725 a year, has already been linked to Vertol Systems, a company he once represented as an attorney. Vertol was hired to do what DeSantis’ critics have decried as a possibly illegal political stunt.
Until now it wasn’t known just how personally they were both involved.
The records also confirm that a second flight from Texas that apparently was headed to near President Joe Biden’s beach house was scrapped after Texas authorities opened a criminal investigation into the first one.
Neither Keefe nor the governor’s office responded immediately to requests for comment Saturday.
A separate batch of records released by the Florida Department of Transportation, which was in charge of finding a contractor for the job, showed James Montgomerie, the president of Vertol Systems, asking for an extension to conduct at least two more flights for $900,000, the Associated Press and Miami Herald reported.
The records were released after 90 separate requests were made, including from The Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group that focuses on enforcing Florida’s open records laws. The organization has sued the governor’s office over the slow, incomplete release of those records.
“It’s taken more time to produce the records than it did to plan this political stunt,” said Michael Barfield, director of public access for the FCGA. “We don’t think the Governor’s Office has made a complete production. Citizens shouldn’t have to sue their government to compel the release of public records.”
The flights were first brought to light on Sept. 14 when the migrants landed in Martha’s Vineyard, as first broadcast by Fox News. Two flights flew from San Antonio to Crestview, Florida, near Vertol System’s headquarters in Destin, before proceeding to Martha’s Vineyard.
Documents released last week by FDOT hired Vertol Systems to relocate “undocumented aliens” from Florida through June 30 or until the $12 million appropriated by the Legislature for the operation was completely spent. The company, which has donated $26,000 to Republicans in the last four years, including House Appropriations Chair Jay Trumbull of Panama City, has received nearly $1.6 million to date.
The 48 passengers were lured onto the flights by a woman named “Perla” who has been identified as Perla Huerta, a Tampa-based military veteran with counterintelligence training, The New York Times reported. The migrants were fed and housed in hotels until they were boarded on the two jets chartered by Vertol Systems from Ultimate Air.
Text messages released Friday suggest Keefe was on the ground in San Antonio well in advance of the flights to Martha’s Vineyard.
“I’m back out here. Conditions are quite favorable,” Keefe texts Uthmeier on Sept. 5.
Uthmeier, who earns $186,522 a year, replies that Keefe has his full support.
A day later, Keefe tweets: “Things are positively accelerating. Are you able to take a call from me and the vendor around 1230 eastern?”
On Sept. 8, Uthmeier tells Keefe that full payment has been approved. “I’m told hard check arrival tomorrow.”
Keefe then updates Uthmeier: “Current plan is for event to occur next Wednesday with ETA at final destination mid to late Wednesday afternoon. Will be more precise about ETA there as event approaches. No news from me between now and then is good news. Will let you know if otherwise.”
In another text exchange on Sept. 12, Keefe tells Uthmeier that “D1 remains on track for this Wednesday/ D2 trending to occur Tuesday of next week.”
On Sept. 14, Keefe suggests he is flying with the migrants, telling Uthmeier, “Wheels Up” and he will be in contact later.
State records show Vertol Systems conducted the flights after receiving $615,000 from the DOT on Sept. 8. It received another $950,000 on Sept. 19, the day before a flight was scheduled from San Antonio to an airport near President Joe Biden’s vacation home on the Delaware shore. The flight was scrapped after the Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff launched a criminal investigation into whether the migrants were trafficked.
This week, the sheriff certified they were victims of a crime, clearing the path for the migrants to receive special visas under federal immigration laws.
Immigration is one of Keefe’s missions as public safety czar. When named by DeSantis last year to the newly created position, Keefe said: “As a former U.S. attorney, I saw illegal aliens that would get deported and come back, and then get deported and come back in an endless cycle,” Keefe said. “The states, including Florida, bear the brunt of this cycle.”
Most of the passengers were Venezuelan, but the documents released Friday night showed at least two two of the passengers were from Peru.
Several passengers submitted Department of Homeland Security Order of Release on Recognizance forms, the records show. Those forms release people from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody provided they comply with all the listed conditions of release.
The document release also contains several text messages in Spanish that appear to be between Huerta and Keefe and others. It indicates that 114 such messages exist between the two, but the governor’s office only released a handful.
In one, an unidentified migrant appears to thank Huerta, saying the migrants have been treated well.
Huerta can also be seen in several photos with a batch of papers in her arm as the immigrants are lined up before boarding the plane, Barfield said.
Keefe, an attorney, used to represent Vertol Systems before he became U.S. Attorney for the Northern District under former President Donald Trump. His ex-partner A. Benjamin Gordon is Vertol Systems’s registered agent.
Democratic Miami Sen. Jason Pizzo has filed a lawsuit to stop DeSantis from spending any more taxpayer dollars on future flights, saying the contract is illegal and violates the terms of the $12 million relocation program the Legislature approved at the request of DeSantis.
The U.S. Treasury Department also is investigating whether DeSantis misused federal coronavirus pandemic recovery money for the operation.
