ORLANDO, Fla. — An organization that gave more than $1 million in 2020 to the dark-money nonprofit at the center of Florida’s “ghost” candidate scandal is seeking to block the public disclosure of bank records that would reveal its donors.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office obtained the bank records for “Let’s Preserve the American Dream,” a nonprofit with close ties to Associated Industries of Florida, the state’s largest business lobbying group whose donors include Florida Power & Light and Florida Crystals.
The nonprofit was recently informed that it is being investigated for potential violations of elections and campaign finance laws, according to court records in the case against former state senator Frank Artiles, who is accused of bribing a friend to run as an independent candidate in a 2020 South Florida state Senate race.
After the Orlando Sentinel submitted a public record request for the bank documents, attorneys representing Let’s Preserve the American Dream filed a motion seeking to block their release.
The attorneys for the nonprofit argue that neither the entity nor its executive director have been accused of wrongdoing and that news stories linking Let’s Preserve the American Dream to Artiles have caused “reputational and financial harm.”
Tim VanderGiesen, a public-corruption prosecutor in the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, acknowledged last week during a hearing that the bank records aren’t relevant to the case against Artiles. Rather, he said, they’re part of a “parallel investigation” into Let’s Preserve the American Dream and several people who have “a business relationship” with Artiles.
Let’s Preserve the American Dream received a letter last month from the State Attorney’s Office concerning “possible violations of Florida elections laws and campaign finance laws,” according to the motion filed Monday seeking to shield the bank records.
Ryan Tyson, Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s executive director, voluntarily sat for a Sept. 30 interview with VanderGiesen and the organization has cooperated with prosecutors, attorneys Matthew Baldwin and Mohammad O. Jazil wrote in the filing dated Monday.
Tyson is a former vice president for Associated Industries of Florida and Let’s Preserve the American Dream operates out of the lobbying organization’s Tallahassee headquarters.
Artiles has been accused of paying his friend Alex Rodriguez nearly $45,000 to file as an independent candidate in a 2020 South Florida Senate race in an attempt to siphon votes from his Democratic opponent. Though Rodriguez did no campaigning, he received more than 6,000 votes in a race in which Republican Ileana Garcia prevailed by just 32 votes.
During the same time period Artiles is accused of bribing Rodriguez, Let’s Preserve the American Dream was paying Artiles $5,000 per month for consulting services. Tyson said the organization canceled Artiles’ contract after his arrest.
Let’s Preserve the American Dream also sent $1.15 million in 2020 to Grow United, a dark money nonprofit that provided all of the funding for two political committees that sent advertisements championing Rodriguez and two other state senate candidates.
The independent candidates featured in those ads included Jestine Iannotti, who filed to run in Central Florida’s District 9 even as she was in the process of moving to Sweden. Republican Jason Brodeur ultimately defeated Democrat Patricia Sigman in that race.
In addition to Let’s Preserve the American Dream, three individuals with ties to the 2020 “ghost” candidate scheme also received “prior to” letters, which typically alert someone they are the target of an investigation, according to a document first made public last week in a court filing.
One of those people, political operative Alex Alvarado, ran the two political committees that sent out ads promoting Rodriguez and the two other independent candidates. Alvarado works closely with Tyson and used Associated Industries of Florida’s Tallahassee headquarters as the primary mailing address on bank records for his committees.
The chairman of Grow United, Richard Alexander, and former Democratic fundraiser Dan Newman, who raised nearly $1 million into Grow United in 2020, also received “prior to” letters from the State Attorney’s Office, the court filing from Artiles’ attorneys said.
Though a motion from Artiles’ attorneys temporarily delayed the public disclosure of the “prior to” letters and other records, attorneys representing the Sentinel and other media organizations intervened and Artiles’ attorneys said during a hearing last week they did not object to making those documents public. A judge has yet to rule on a request by Artiles lawyers to block the disclosure of Artiles’ credit report and files collected from his personal laptops and cell phone.
It’s not yet clear when the “prior to” letters will be available publicly. No hearing has yet been set on Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s request to keep its bank records private.
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