Attorney for commissioner says “When all of the evidence is in, and people know the whole story, they will know that Scott Maddox has been a good city commissioner."

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Three former FBI agents say the federal government appears to be building a strong case against Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox and Downtown Improvement Authority Executive Director Paige Carter-Smith.
The former agents are familiar with the case through media accounts and the accidental release of a search warrant affidavit in early February detailing the FBI’s investigation into Maddox and Carter-Smith, his longtime friend and business partner. The affidavit said Maddox took official action on behalf of city vendors in exchange for cash through Governance, Inc., a consulting firm he found in 1999 but later sold to Carter-Smith to avoid public appearances of conflicts of interest.
“The evidence contained in this affidavit to me suggests that authorities are going to return an indictment and charges will be filed,” said James Wedick, a retired FBI supervisory agent from Sacramento, California. “Because they contain factual allegations indicating that there’s a pay-to-play scheme in existence in Tallahassee, Florida. And it’s ongoing because of the relationship between Scott Maddox and Paige Carter-Smith. I don’t doubt that they will be charged.”
No charges have been filed yet, however, and attorneys for Maddox and Carter-Smith have said they will be cleared of allegations of wrongdoing.
“Right now only one side of the story has been told through a document that should not have been leaked in the first place,” said Maddox’s attorney, Stephen Dobson. “When all of the evidence is in, and people know the whole story, they will know that Scott Maddox has been a good city commissioner and always acted in Tallahassee's best interest.”
Our coverage of the FBI investigation: 

'Fat cats don't talk'

Maddox late last month nearly cleaned out his campaign account for a state Senate seat in 2020 to pay for legal fees to Dobson’s law firm, a move that only heightened speculation that indictments were imminent. Maddox said in a written release he spent the campaign cash in an effort "to clear" his name.
The affidavit says Maddox told undercover FBI agents and made public statements indicating he sold his interest in the firm between 2010 and 2012, when he returned to the City Commission after a nine-year absence. It also says Carter-Smith asserted in a May 2017 interview, presumably with the FBI, that she was the only person involved with Governance.
However, the FBI said in the affidavit that Maddox continued to control Governance and profit from it after the 2012 election, in at least one case personally steering a company with business before the city to the firm. The FBI also said that since November 2012, Governance paid Maddox $392,000 and gave another $191,000 to Maddox and his family, including payments on Governance credit cards they used. 
Wedick said according to the warrant "Maddox had a scheme going where he and his family benefited to the tune of half a million dollars, if not more. And this scheme was ongoing for a number of years. And so as far as cases go, this looks like a pretty good case.”
Carter-Smith's lawyer, Stephen Webster, told the Tallahassee Democrat in February that payments from Governance to Maddox were payments on a loan for the purchase of nine condominium units at Adams Street Lofts. He said the payments were lawful.
Wedick and other retired FBI agents said the allegations described in the affidavit appears to be a classic case of pay-to-play. It has a politician supposedly on the take, a shadowy intermediary, referred to only as “J.B.,” between the official and vendors paying bribes and the undercover agents trying to piece the scheme together. 
“That’s why you need an undercover operation,” Wedick said. “It connects the dots between an elected official and those paying the bribes that without the undercover operation, nobody would ever know about because in a corruption case, usually, everyone involved is a fat cat. And fat cats don’t talk.”
The undercover agents
Photos: FBI fake-out? Anatomy of an undercover operation
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City of Tallahassee staffers met with the mystery man
City of Tallahassee staffers met with the mystery man Mike Miller about a development in town.  City of Tallahassee
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10 Photos
Photos: FBI fake-out? Anatomy of an undercover operation

'Embedded in perpetuity'

The search warrant asked Apple, Inc., to turn over all records involving Maddox’s personal account, including text messages and emails. The affidavit noted Apple had already provided records, including texts between Maddox and a representative with Uber Technologies. The ride-sharing company hired Carter-Smith in 2015 as the company successfully pushed for a city ordinance allowing it to operate in town; Maddox voted in favor of an ordinance that dovetailed with Uber’s interests.
More: Figures in FBI probe worked Uber ordinance behind the scenes
“The FBI — they’re on the road of making a strong public corruption case,” said Chris Quick, a former FBI agent from Charleston, South Carolina. “That’s what I took from the affidavit. And that the text messages are just going to further strengthen that case.”
Quick said investigators prize texts and emails because they include thoughts from the target in black and white.
“Once you hit the send button, it’s out there in cyberspace and it’s on the server at Apple or on your phone,” he said. “And how does someone say, ‘Hey I want whatever the amount is and I’m going to do this for you.’ How do you then say, ‘That’s not what I meant?’ That’s the great thing from the investigative side ... it’s embedded in perpetuity.”
The investigation in Tallahassee involved at least three undercover federal agents, who posed as out-of-town developers and businessmen. According to the affidavit, one of the agents met with a real estate developer referred to only as “J.B.,” who said Maddox helped get approval for one of his developments based on his personal relationship with the commissioner. 
“J.B.” told the agent that Maddox “doesn’t want to have conversations, inappropriate conversations with anybody” except for “J.B.,” the affidavit says. “When asked whether Maddox wanted to be paid, J.B. said that he does, but that the money would need to ‘run through Governance.’ ”
An undercover agent also spoke with Maddox on election night in 2016 and asked how much Maddox would have to be paid “to get this ball rolling.” Maddox allegedly instructed the agent to pay Governance $20,000 a month. Later, that same month, Maddox introduced the undercover agent to Carter-Smith. 
Joseph Lewis, who retired in 2004 as acting assistant director of the FBI’s criminal division, said the affidavit suggests undercover agents are looking for confirmation, through texts and emails, that Maddox agreed to take official action in exchange for cash.
“So now the conversation that they’re trying to get is anything involving whatever they asked the target to do,” Lewis said. “He’s got to take some action to get whatever the undercover businesses want. So they’re looking for any information that will corroborate the fact that he’s taking action on behalf of the undercover agents. It’s a classic corruption scheme of either pay-to-play or quid pro quo.”
The affidavit also says that in 2014, Carter-Smith forwarded an email to Maddox titled “Governance Services Proposal” that involved consulting services for a company affiliated with “J.B.” Court documents didn’t specify whether “J.B.” is actually John “J.T.” Burnette, a local developer who was named in FBI subpoenas and photographed with Maddox and undercover FBI agents in a Las Vegas hotel room. Burnette did not respond to a text asking whether he is “J.B.”

A wider scope or 'squat'?

The retired FBI agents also said that while the affidavit doesn’t mention officials beyond Maddox and Carter-Smith, the local investigation, which dates to 2015, could include others. Quick said the FBI agents only want to give enough information in the affidavit to show probable cause that a crime occurred.
“They don’t want to give their whole case to the judge,” Quick said. “The judge doesn’t want to hear about that other stuff nor does the government want to release it if it doesn’t have to. There could be others in the investigation who are involved. There might be another search warrant that was actually sealed that you don’t know about.”
The FBI served search warrants on City Hall in June 2017 demanded records involving eight local business people, including Carter-Smith, Burnette and lobbyist Adam Corey, and more than a dozen of their firms. Another subpoena served on the city in September asked for records involving Maddox, Carter-Smith and others affiliated with Maddox and Governance.
Mayor Andrew Gillum's name has not appeared on any of the subpoenas. But he was photographed in 2016 with one of the undercover agents, who went by the alias "Mike Miller," and Corey during a boat outing in New York City. Gillum didn’t know at the time Miller was an FBI agent. After the City Hall subpoenas hit, Gillum acknowledged he had talked to the FBI, but he said he was told he was not a focus of its probe.
Gillum and the FBI investigation
Gillum, who’s running for Florida governor, has not answered key questions about the trip to New York, including whether he went on outings including a Mets game with Miller and if so, who paid for it. 
“We don’t know, have no idea why that meeting occurred and the photograph was generated,” Wedick said of the Gillum photo. “And really to say that it suggests corrupt activity is wrong. That thought is wrong until you put some details and substance in it that has a crime in it. Absent those details, you don’t have squat.”

'Where there's smoke there's fire'

The 28-page affidavit, which was filed under seal, appeared on a federal courts website Feb. 5 but was taken down an hour after the Tallahassee Democrat published a copy of it. Wedick said the courts’ posting of the document appears accidental because the document was clearly marked sealed. 
More: Read the search warrant demanding Scott Maddox communications from Apple
Federal prosecutors, he said, are likely “extremely displeased” that the documents surfaced publicly. But he said their release could speed up the investigation and have other ramifications.
“The public gets information that they hadn’t had before,” he said. “And in this case, it clearly suggests that there’s criminal activity and that authorities should be looking into it and thank goodness somebody’s doing it. At some point, someone always asks if this is all B.S. or is there some substance to what the feds are doing. And lo and behold, when you look at the affidavit, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And it looks like they’ve got the barn burning down.”
Maddox said in a February statement to the Democrat that the allegations against him are "untrue."
“All Americans are protected under the constitution with a presumption of innocence," he said, "and all Americans should feel safe that they will not be unfairly tried in the court of public opinion."
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or follow @JeffBurlew on Twitter.