ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: Central Florida ‘ghost’ candidate< Jestine Iannotti, pleads no contest, marking end of political scandal. (Annie Martin, Orlando Sentinel, August 22, 2024)

Jestine Iannotti's sins have found her out.  The fetid feculent frequent illegal abuse of ghastly "ghost" candidates in Florida makes one-party rule a stench in the nostrils of our Nation.  From Orlando Sentinel: 

Central Florida ‘ghost’ candidate pleads no contest, marking end of political scandal

Jestine Iannotti, who traveled to Sweden in the middle of her state Senate campaign, accepted two misdemeanors as part of a plea agreement

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel

Jestine Iannotti, a former independent candidate for the Florida Senate, pleaded guilty on Thursday for her role in Central Florida’s “ghost” candidate scheme 2020.

By ANNIE MARTIN | anmartin@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

UPDATED: August 22, 2024 at 4:15 p.m.

estine Iannotti, whose candidacy for state Senate was at the center of the notorious 2020 ‘ghost’ candidate scheme, pleaded no contest on Thursday to campaign finance-related charges, marking the apparent final chapter of a scandal that has rocked Central Florida politics over the past four years.

Iannotti, accused of illegally accepting a $1,200 cash donation for her campaign and falsely reporting contributors who had not given her money, originally was charged with a felony and five misdemeanors. But her plea agreement whittled down those charges to just two first-degree misdemeanors: One count for accepting a cash contribution in excess of the $50 limit and another for accepting a contribution through or in the name of another.

The 38-year-old now lives in Sweden with her partner and children and did not appear during the eight-minute hearing before a near-empty courtroom at the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford. Her attorney, Michael Barber, appeared before Judge Michael Rudisill on her behalf and declined comment to the Orlando Sentinel afterward.

Iannotti will be required to pay a portion of the cost of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s investigation, which has been split between her and two other people charged in the case. Adjudication has been withheld in Iannotti’s case, so she was not formally convicted of the crime.

A former substitute teacher for the Seminole County school district, Iannotti was a political newcomer when she filed to run as an independent in Senate District 9. After qualifying for the highly competitive race, she spent several weeks in Sweden and refused to speak to reporters. However, an advertising blitz promoted her as a progressive alternative in an apparent attempt to siphon votes from eventual winner Republican Jason Brodeur’s main opponent, Democrat Patricia Sigman.

Though the criminal penalties for many participants ended up being modest, the ghost candidate scheme — largely revealed by the Sentinel — served as an example of the lengths to which campaign consultants may go to deceive the public in a partisan election.

Running as a “ghost” candidate who does not actively campaign or sincerely seek election to an office is not a crime in Florida. But some other practices that were part of the scheme are illegal, including incorrectly reporting contributions, donating to a candidate’s campaign in someone else’s name and accepting large cash donations, as Florida laws seek to ensure campaign contributions are transparent to the public.

Iannotti was one of three local people charged in the scheme. The others were longtime Central Florida political operative Eric Foglesong, who pleaded no contest in June to five misdemeanor counts and former Seminole County GOP Chair Ben Paris, who was convicted of one misdemeanor after a four-day trial in 2022.

Iannotti’s candidacy — and those of two South Florida candidates who also did no campaigning — was promoted by a pair of entities chaired by then-GOP political consultant Alex Alvarado, with nearly identical ads that depicted them as progressive alternatives to the Democrats in each race.

The candidates were promoted in advertising paid for by a dark money nonprofit group run by consultants working closely with Florida Power & Light. In one of the other races, former state Sen. Frank Artiles is accused of bribing a friend to run for a Miami-area state Senate seat. Artiles, who a top GOP consulting firm paid $15,000 per month during the 2020 campaign, is still awaiting trial. Former independent candidate Alex Rodriguez pleaded guilty to accepting nearly $45,000 from Artiles and agreed to testify against him at his trial.

An independent candidate also filed to run in a third state Senate race but never campaigned. Artiles was accused of helping the candidate enter the race for that seat, which was also in the Miami area, but the candidate was never charged with a crime.

Though Iannotti was promoted in a nearly identical mail ad campaign that was paid for by the same dark money nonprofit as the South Florida candidates, Central Florida investigators apparently never delved into the question of who funded or planned those mailers or why the political consultants sought to aid Iannotti’s campaign. Instead, the charges against them focused on the misreporting of election contributions, as well as an illegal cash donation to her campaign fund.

Foglesong was accused of helping Iannotti get her name on the ballot, writing the $1,187 check that paid her qualifying fee to the state’s elections division. He pleaded no contest to four counts of making contributions through or in the name of another and one count of making a cash contribution to a candidate in excess of the state’s $50 limit.

An acquaintance of Foglesong’s, Todd Karvoski of Orlando, was listed as another of the four contributors to Iannotti’s campaign but told FDLE investigators he’d never contributed to Iannotti’s campaign. He said the same to a Sentinel reporter who visited his apartment in April 2021, months before the FDLE investigation begin.

“I never wrote a check … I’m not even a registered voter,” he told agents, according to the FDLE report.

Paris, who was working for Brodeur at the Seminole County Chamber during the 2020 election, was accused of causing his cousin’s name to be listed falsely on official records as a campaign contributor to Iannotti. Brodeur was never charged in connection with the case and told the Orlando Sentinel in 2022 he didn’t know about his former employee’s role in Iannotti’s candidacy.

Brodeur won the race by 7,644 votes, while Iannotti received more than 5,000 votes.

anmartin@orlandosentinel.com