Frank Artiles arrested for sham state senate election — but was he alone?

This means Sen. Ileana Garcia won illegally

Disgraced former Sen. Frank Artiles surrendered to authorities Thursday, walking into the Turner Guilford Knight jail facility near the airport and depriving us the joy of a perp walk.

This comes a day after the State Attorney’s Office raided his Palmetto Bay home and left with computers and other devices, documents and boxes of stuff that could include wads of cash from his safe, which is from where, investigators found, Artiles pulled stacks of bills to pay Alex Rodriguez, the NPA plantidate he convinced to run in the Senate District 37 race.

Rodriguez, who agreed because he had money troubles, got more than 6,000 votes and likely affected the election, in which television personality Ileana Garcia beat former Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez by a scant 32 votes.

The allegations include that Artiles paid Rodriguez more than $55,000 — the agreed price was $50K — to run after he first pressured him to change from Republican to NPA.

“Sadly, Frank Artiles knew he could manipulate Florida’s electoral system,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle said at a press conference announcing the charges. Artiles and Rodriguez were each charged with making or receiving illegal contributions and false swearing. Seems like peanuts but two of the charges are third degree felonies that could earn them a sentence of up to five years in prison.

“Running a ghost candidate is not a crime in Florida,” Fernandez-Rundle said. “Is it an attack on our Democracy? Is it a dirty political trick? Absolutely.”

The 25-page arrest affidavit is chock full of interesting details, like these:

The first time the mastermind contacted Alex Rodriguez was at 4 a.m. on March 15 via Facebook.
There are images of text messages where Artiles is repeatedly telling Rodriguez to change his party affiliation to NPA.
Artiles knew that Alex Rodriguez was living in Boca Raton but was happy that his driver’s license still had the old Palmetto Bay address.
In addition to the different wads of cash, Artiles paid the nearly $6,800 fee for the private school for Alex Rodriguez’s child. He did it with a corporate card. Artiles also directly paid the plantidate’s rent one month.
Alex Rodriguez kept asking for money for some business transactions and Artiles kept pulling stacks of cash from his safe. But he would tell the plantidate that he wanted 30% of whatever profits he would get.
Alex Rodriguez made a total of five charges on Artiles’ credit card from October 23 to Nov. 2 totaling more than $7,500.
Artiles wanted to buy his daughter a used Range Rover and Rodriguez told him he could get one at auction for $10,900. It was a lie. There was no car. Rodriguez felt that Artiles would never live up to his end of the bargain.
Rodriguez thought Artiles was connected enough to help him get a multi-million dollar PPE contract. It never happened.

Fernandez-Rundle said there was nothing to indicate Garcia participated in the fraud. “We have not uncovered evidence that Sen. Garcia was a part of Frank Artiles’ plotting,” she said.

But does it matter? Garcia was elected through the illegal actions of someone in her party! She was elected by fraud. There should be some kind of mechanism where someone who is elected by fraud is removed from office.

And does anybody really believe that Artiles was spending his own money?Please. There should be more charges coming.

Because it wasn’t only the $55K and change he paid Rodriguez to run, Artiles or someone working with him also paid for several mailers through a political action committee painting Rodriguez as a progressive independent. The Our Florida PAC, with a Kendall Drive address, had one single contribution of $370,000 from a non-existing company with a UPS in Atlanta.

Does anyone really believe that Artiles — who has been working as a lobbyist since he had to resign from the Senate over his racist rant — had that kind of money lying around legitimately? Are investigators going to talk to the people who allegedly run that PAC?

What about the “third party” identified in the affidavit, the one who met Rodriguez at First Horizon bank in Palmetto Bay and gave him $9,000 cash on Nov. 11 to pay his legal bills? Who is that person? What did they know and when?

Even the attorney for the plantidate says there were other “co-conspirators” involved.

“Frank Artiles and his co-conspirators knew they couldn’t beat José Javier Rodríguez in a fair election so they rigged it,” said William Barzee, who is representing Rodriguez. “Artiles cynically targeted and used a vulnerable ‘friend’ with a great name to run in the race in order to confuse voters and steal the election.”

Artiles himself told Rodriguez “we have money in an account” when he offered to pay him the $50,000 — $25K before and $25K after the election.

We!

He did not act alone. Authorities should continue to investigate until everyone is caught. Ask for the maximum sentence and negotiate down.

Both Artiles and Rodriguez were released Thursday. The plantidate got released on his own recognizance. The former senator had a $5,000 bond.

Here is a copy of the arrest affidavit:

Frank Artiles arrest warrant March 18 by Political Cortadito on Scribd

Frank Artiles, Ileana Garcia, Jose Javier Rodriguez

Frank Artiles arrested for sham state senate election — but was he alone? added by Ladra on March 18, 2021
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