Frank Artiles, the former Republican lawmaker accused of bribing a spoiler candidate to run in an important South Florida state Senate election, had a business relationship with the political consultant behind an advertising campaign that boosted that candidate and similar ones in two other races — including one in Central Florida, records released Friday show.
Emails and invoices obtained by prosecutors show that Artiles was working as a $5,000-a-month contractor for Let’s Preserve the American Dream, a politically active nonprofit with ties to the business-lobbying group Associated Industries of Florida.
The records also show the person Artiles reported to at the Tallahassee nonprofit was Alex Alvarado, the Republican strategist who ran two political committees that together spent $550,000 last year promoting mysterious independent candidates who appeared on the ballot in three key Senate races: Senate District 9 in Central Florida, which was won by Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford; Senate District 37 in Miami, won by Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia of Miami; and Senate District 39 in Miami and the Florida Keys, won by Republican Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez.
Artiles was arrested earlier this year for his role in lining up one of those candidates: Alex Rodriguez, who ran in Senate District 37. Authorities say Artiles paid Rodriguez roughly $45,000 to put his name on the ballot as an independent and helped him falsify election documents, as part of a scheme to confuse voters and siphon support from the then-Democratic incumbent — who ended up losing by 32 votes out of more than 210,000 cast. Rodriguez is also facing charges.
Other records released Friday show that Artiles was directly involved with another of those independent candidates: 81-year-old Celso Alfonso, who appeared on the ballot in Senate District 39. The records show that Artiles told authorities he helped Alfonso fill out his qualifying paperwork, delivered forms on his behalf and helped with campaign finance reporting.
There is no indication in the records released Friday as to whether Artiles and Alvarado coordinated together on the alleged spoiler candidate strategy.
Artiles’ attorney, Frank Quintero, declined to answer questions from the Orlando Sentinel about his client’s work for Let’s Preserve the American Dream or whether he discussed the so-called “ghost” candidates with Alvarado.
“As I have repeatedly explained, we will answer all questions relating to the charges against Mr. Artiles in court and at trial,” Quintero wrote in an email.
Alvarado could not be reached for comment Friday.
A former Republican state senator, Artiles resigned from elected office in April 2017 after using a racial slur and other curse words against some of his colleagues. Within a few months, though, emails show he had begun working for Let’s Preserve the American Dream, which says its mission is “to educate citizens on the societal benefits of sound economic, regulatory and legal policies.”
Invoices show that Let’s Preserve the American Dream was paying Artiles $5,000 a month for “research services.” Emails show Artiles periodically emailed the organization with commentary or links to news stories about Miami and Hispanic politics.
Alvarado was the person to whom Artiles would usually send his invoices and news links.
“The latest from miami dade [sic] politics is the unholy alliance of [Daniella Levine] Cava, current commissioner and aspiring Mayoral candidate and a team of female candidates that are anti business, anti industry, progressive, tree hugging crazies,” Artiles wrote in a July 2019 update.
Let’s Preserve the American Dream, which spent $11.7 million in 2018, does not disclose its donors. But it has close connections to Associated Industries, a lobbying group that represents big businesses such as Florida Power & Light, U.S. Sugar Corp. and Walt Disney World.
Its executive director is Ryan Tyson, a former AIF vice president who now works for AIF as a contractor leading its political council. Let’s Preserve the American Dream leases space inside AIF’s headquarters in Tallahassee. And emails show that Alvarado sometimes forwarded Artiles’ invoices to an executive at AIF who passed away last year.
Tyson said the organization had been using the late AIF executive for bookkeeping services but now uses an outside service. He added that AIF has never provided funding to Let’s Preserve the American Dream.
“LPAD had a relationship with Senator Artiles since his departure from the Florida Legislature for his insights on the issues affecting the region,” Tyson said in a text message. “LPAD terminated its relationship with Senator Artiles after his indictment by the Miami Dade County State Attorney’s [Office]. LPAD was and remains committed to complying with all applicable federal, state, and local laws.”
Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman for AIF, said the organization offers accounting services for its tenants and that “AIF has never paid Frank Artiles or his consulting firm for services.”
Let’s Preserve the American Dream wasn’t Artiles’ only client. Another was Data Targeting Inc., the prominent political consulting firm that was paid millions of dollars during the 2020 elections by Senate Republican leaders to oversee GOP Senate campaigns.
Records released earlier this month show Data Targeting gave Artiles a $15,000-a-month consulting contract last year to work on Senate races in Miami-Dade County. Artiles also billed the firm for some expenses that appear to align with steps that authorities say he took to arrange Rodriguez’s candidacy.
Alvarado, meanwhile, set up two political committees that blanketed homes in Seminole, Volusia and Miami-Dade counties with mailers boosting the independents and paid two women to list their names as the chairs, treasurers and registered agents for the committees.
One of the women told South Florida investigators her signature appeared on documents she did not sign. Text messages released Friday show Alvarado asked both of them to provide images of their signatures on a “white background,” and they responded with samples that look similar to those that appear on some of the documents submitted to the Division of Elections.
Alvarado paid the women for the use of their names in early fall, the text messages show. He also gave them a second installment after reporters started calling them — and about the time the Artiles investigation began.
On Nov. 13, two days after South Florida investigators started looking into Artiles’ role in recruiting Rodriguez to file in District 37, one of the women complained to Alvarado about an “annoying” reporter who had tried to text and call her several times.
“It’s about to be over with next week,” Alvarado responded. I’ve got an extra grand for ya since they’ve been hella annoying.”
As journalists continued to contact the two women and the “ghost” candidate scheme gained national attention, the two women became increasingly worried about the roles in the controversy, the messages showed. Even after South Florida investigators started probing the case, Alvarado downplayed the seriousness of the situation.
“The CNN guy showed up at my house,” Alvarado wrote to one of the women on Nov. 18, ending his message with an emoji of a grinning face spouting tears and adding he didn’t answer.
“If this happens all the time why are they so set on figuring this out and who is behind it,” the woman responded, before asking if the intense media interest was “how it always is.” Alvarado told her that it was typical.
“Same [expletive] different election lmao,” Alvarado wrote to the woman.
The woman grew even more worried when she received a subpoena from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
“Are you 1000% sure I shouldn’t lawyer up,” she asked Alvarado in early December. “I have a bad feeling about this [I don’t know] what is going on or if something was done wrong and will be pinned on me.”
Alvarado encouraged her to rely on a lawyer he hired. If the young woman, who later told investigators she was pregnant and worried about money, wanted to hire her own lawyer, Alvarado added, she could do so at her own expense.
“I just know how tomorrow will go for me,” Alvarado said, referring to a conversation he planned to have with the State Attorney’s Office. “I know tomorrow will clear all this up.”
In several of the text messages, Alvarado appeared to lie to the women.
When one of the women reached out to the other in late November —saying, “I just saw your name in news along with mine. Are we in trouble?? I am freaked the hell out” — the other woman texted Alvarado, asking “is this your friend?!”
“No idea who that be,” he responded.
jgarcia@orlandosentinel.com; anmartin@orlandosentinel.com
