Investigators searching for the source of more than half-a-million dollars spent last year in support of spoiler candidates that helped Republicans win three key state Senate races have obtained bank records for an organization tied to a big-business lobbying group funded by companies such as Florida Power & Light, Walt Disney World and U.S. Sugar Corp.
The records were obtained as part of a criminal case in Miami, where prosecutors have charged former Republican state Sen. Frank Artiles with five felonies. Authorities say Artiles paid a financially struggling friend, Alexis Pedro Rodriguez, to run as an independent candidate in a state Senate race in South Florida. Rodriguez has also been charged in the case.
Rodriguez was one of three mysterious no-party candidates supported by the same big-money donor who ran in highly competitive state Senate elections last fall — including a Senate race in Central Florida won by Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford.
Only Artiles and Rodriguez have been accused of crimes. But all three no-party candidates were supported by nearly identical advertisements that appeared designed to siphon votes from Democrats and were financed with $550,000 in donations from a nonprofit organization that did not disclose its own donors.
Court filings in the Artiles case show that investigators recently obtained the bank records of yet another dark-money nonprofit — but one with ties to the big business lobbying group Associated Industries of Florida (AIF).
That organization is known as “Let’s Preserve the American Dream,” and it is run by a longtime pollster and political strategist for AIF. Let’s Preserve the American Dream operates out of AIF’s headquarters inside a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Tallahassee.
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