ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: State Rep. Carolina Amesty indicted on forgery charges. (Orlando Sentinel)

Republican State Representative was an administrator of her family-run school.  From Orlando Sentinel: 

Carolina Amesty indicted on forgery charges

The Orlando-area state representative was the subject of a Sentinel investigation into her background, credentials and conduct in her former role as an administrator at a family-run school

Carolina Amesty booking photo from the Orange County jail on Aug. 29, 2024. (Orange County jail)

By ANNIE MARTIN | anmartin@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel and LESLIE POSTAL | lpostal@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

UPDATED: August 29, 2024 at 1:43 p.m.

Florida Rep. Carolina Amesty, a Republican from west Orange County, was indicted on four felony charges and then booked into county jail Thursday after a grand jury determined she forged a man’s signature on a document she notarized for her family-run school.

Her indictment follows two Orlando Sentinel investigations into Amesty’s background, credentials and conduct in her former role as an administrator at Central Christian University, a small school on North Hiawassee Road in Orange County.

The most recent story from the Sentinel detailed how Amesty notarized a form in September 2021 claiming Robert Shaffer, a veteran educator with a Ph.D. from the University of Florida, was an employee at the university. But Shaffer, who previously served as the principal of the adjacent K-12 school run by Amesty’s family, told the Sentinel he never worked at the university nor signed the form Amesty claimed he did.

Amesty turned herself into the Orange County Jail on Thursday afternoon following her Wednesday indictment, according to a press release from the State Attorney’s Office. She’s been charged with forgery, uttering a forgery, false acknowledgment or certification by a notary public and notarizing her own signature.

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All four charges are third-degree felonies, and three involve the Shaffer document that the was subject of the Sentinel’s investigation, according to the indictment documents. The offenses are each punishable by up to five years in prison.

“A concerned citizen brought potential criminal wrongdoing to our attention, and in line with our obligation to investigate fairly and without bias, we requested a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation and thoroughly reviewed the facts and evidence of the case,” State Attorney Andrew Bain said in a statement. “That information was presented to the grand jury who found sufficient evidence to return an indictment. I am committed to upholding fairness and justice in every case by applying the law equally to everyone and my record reflects this dedication.”

Bain was appointed last year to his current role by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Sentinel reported in June that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had an active investigation involving Amesty and Central Christian.

The 29-year-old Republican was elected to the Florida House in 2022 to represent a district that takes in much of southwest Orange, including Walt Disney World, and part of northwest Osceola County. She is running for reelection this fall.

As part of the Sentinel investigation, the news organization consulted three handwriting experts about the Shaffer document who said the signature likely wasn’t his, with one saying there was “no chance” Shaffer had signed the document. Two of the experts said the Shaffer signature might have been written by Amesty, who used her notary stamp to swear under Florida law the signature was authentic. The third agreed Amesty’s penmanship resembled the handwriting on the signature line of Shaffer’s personnel form but didn’t weigh in on whether she wrote his name.

Amesty has repeatedly declined to be interviewed by Sentinel reporters.  Through her attorney, Amesty sent an affidavit to the Sentinel earlier this year swearing that she saw Shaffer, now 88, sign the form the day she notarized it.

As a notary public, Amesty was a state-appointed official who could certify the authenticity of signatures on important documents. 

The FDLE is Florida’s primary state-level criminal justice agency.

In addition to Shaffer, Central Christian listed as faculty on documents submitted to the Florida Department of Education the names of four men who also told the Sentinel they’d never worked for the university.

Using the credentials of Shaffer and the four other men, who all hold graduate degrees, likely helped the school get a state license, as the rules require most instructors to have advanced degrees. Florida first granted Central Christian a license in 2022 and renewed it last year. The school needed a license to switch from offering religious classes, which are exempt from state licensing, to secular ones in fields such as hospitality management and psychology.

In 2020, early in Central Christian’s licensing effort, Amesty also submitted false information about her own credentials on a state form.

The form claimed she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida in 2017, though UCF said she is a 2019 graduate. Amesty has previously misrepresented her UCF graduation date, posting on social media that she earned a degree in 2016.

The form also claimed Amesty earned a master’s degree from Moscow State University in 2018 — after spending five months at the Russian school and at a time when she was still completing her bachelor’s degree in Florida.

Her attorney did not confirm the Moscow State degree and blamed Central Christian’s consultant for any errors on the form. But the consultant said his firm did not fill in or alter the form, which Amesty signed and had notarized.

Central Christian, where Amesty served as vice president, also failed to pay on time the property taxes it owed on its five-bedroom pool home near Windermere, and Amesty’s shuttered fast-food restaurant failed to pay its property taxes and utility bills for months, the Sentinel reported in its first investigation. The Orlando Utilities Commission cut off the restaurant’s electricity and water service after the restaurant did not respond to past-due notices or pay its bills.

The OUC bill was eventually paid, as were the taxes. But the university tried to argue the house in Keene’s Pointe on the Butler Chain of Lakes should be exempt from property taxes because it was the residence of Amesty’s father, Juan, who is Central Christian’s president.

Amesty compared the house, where she lived during her first campaign, to the home Rollins College maintains for its president, which is tax exempt as an educational property.

A special magistrate, however, ruled that Central Christian provided no evidence its home on a golf course was used for university business. Instead, the magistrate found the home was used solely as a residence and said the university needed to pay its county property taxes.

The 5,400-square foot home is located about 15 miles from Central Christian’s campus and is in a community that isn’t accessible to visitors unless they show a pass to a guard at its gated entrance.

Amesty in January filed a lawsuit against the Orlando Sentinel, claiming its first investigation defamed her.

The Sentinel stood by its reporting and asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing it was accurately based on public records and asking that Amesty be required to pay the newspaper’s legal fees, if it prevailed.

In May, before any ruling, Amesty dropped her lawsuit.

Amesty is running for re-election to again represent state House District 45. She will face Democrat Leonard Spencer, a first-time candidate for public office and former Disney executive who now works for Amazon, on the Nov. 5 ballot.

anmartin@orlandosentinel

lpostal@orlandosentinel.com

Originally Published: August 29, 2024 at 1:21 p.m.