RPOF counters Greer: party did not offer hush money

The Republican Party of Florida has not attempted to settle a civil suit filed against them by former GOP chairman Jim Greer, according to a lawyer for the party.

"The Republican Party of Florida has never made an offer to pay Jim Greer any money to settle his lawsuit, not one dollar not one red cent,'' said Stephen Dobson, the Tallahassee lawyer who represents the party.

Dobson made the statement Thursday after Greer and his lawyer, Damon Chase, claimed that the party was pushing for a secret settlement that would pay Greer "hush money.''

Party officials did have a meeting with Greer and Chase in September 2011 and agreed to keep the details discussed at the meeting confidential. That written agreement became public this week after Orlando Circuit Judge Marc Lubet agreed to allow Chase to use it as evidence when Greer goes on trial for money laundering and fraud in November.

Chase and Greer contacted reporters with copies of a newly released "confidentiality agreement'' signed by Andy Palmer, former executive director of the party and initialed by Chase, Dobson and Steve Andrews, another lawyer who represented the party at the time.

Chase said the document is proof that the party was trying keep Greer quiet.

Lucy Morgan, Times Senior Correspondent

Low profile? Rick Scott to headline $500k Fort Lauderdale fundraiser for Mitt Romney

Sure, Gov. Rick Scott's keeping a low profile on the campaign trail these days as Mitt Romney runs for president. But it looks like Scott is lending something that's more important than campaign appearances: fundraising help.

The governor is scheduled tonight to hold a Morton's Steak House fundraiser in Fort Lauderdal for at least 20 donors. The event starts at 6:30 p.m. Maximum donation is $50,000 a person, but organizers say they expect about half of that.

Oops. Jim Greer shows Florida Republicans wanted to settle case with yet another secret agreement

At the core of the criminal fraud charges against former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer is the idea that he had a secret fundraising contract that the rest of the party didn't know about. RPOF leaders said they were outraged, that it amounted to theft.

Greer's lawyer, Damon Chase, said his client did no wrong and that the there was nothing odd about the secret fundraising contract with Victory Strategies because the Republican Party of Florida operates in secrecy.

As evidence, Chase points to a secret severance agreement to pay Greer $124,000 to make him go away. But to prevent payment, Chase alleges, the Republicans who control the state power structure had him investigated and indicted by state authorities. One Republican, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, lied about signing the agreement.

Now Chase has second piece of evidence that, he says, shows the secrecy of RPOF and how it spends money: A Sept. 15, 2011 confidential document to discuss a potential settlement signed by the party. Download Confidential Settlement Agreement 2011-09-15.

Party loyalists say Greer initiated the settlement, however, and that Chase has essentially set them up.

Party attorney Steve Dobson wouldn't go that far: "I don’t want to get into specifics. But the Republican Party of Florida has never made any offer to pay Jim Greer any money. Not one dollar and not one red cent. It’s important to remember that only one person in this lawsuit has been arrested and charged with six felony counts and that’s Jim Greer."

Here's Chase:

It shows that, Number one: Jim Greer’s being accused of entering into a secret agreement. The agreement he entered into is like all other agreements with the party. It is confidential. The Victory Strategies contract was nothing special. If you took a random juror, it looks suspicious. It looks bad. It says secret. It says confidential. Except that’s how the Republican Party did business before, during and after Jim Greer. That's how they do business now.

Number 2: Why would they want to settle if they thought he committed a crime? They’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend a $124,000 lawsuit. It’s like a little kid who keeps lying. Everyone of them lied. The theory of our defense is no crimes were committed. The only reason the state of Florida is spending millions to try to convict Jim Greer over $60,000 – a chief justice signing a warrant and indict him – is that RPOF was pulling the strings. At that time Attorney General Bill McCollum was distancing himself. Bill McCollum was the presumptive nominee for the party for governor before Rick Scott came along. The state has never made a plea over what amounts to a contract dispute. They want him to do 60 years in prison for $60,000 that he didn’t even steal. He’s not going to plea to anything. We will prevail in the criminal trial and then the civil trial.

Embarrassing statements abound -- for witnesses too -- in Greer case

There is a bit of bad news for some of the witnesses slated to testify at the trial of former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer.

A four-page report that apparently includes some embarrassing accusations against witnesses is a public record, says Orlando Circuit Judge Marc L. Lubet in an order released Monday.

The judge also refused to limit the records that Greer can subpoena from the state party saying the records are likely to be relevant and favorable to his defense. Greer will have to pay reasonable costs for the documents.

Greer faces trial in November on federal charges of money laundering and grand theft in connection with money he obtained from his secret involvement in a company that handled fundraising for the party in 2009.

Orlando attorney Richard E. Hornsby asked the court to seal the record to avoid violating the privacy of "interested persons'' who were not charged. He would not identify the client who hired him.

During a hearing earlier this month the judge read a list of potential witnesses who might be harmed by the report, including Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and GOP fundraiser; former GOP executive director Delmar Johnson; former finance chairman Harry Sargeant; and Dane Eagle, a House candidate and former aide to Gov. Charlie Crist.

Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Michael Williams said he expects to call all but possibly Eagle.

Lucy Morgan's story is here.

Jim Greer case costs GOP more to fight ($260k) than settle ($124k)

It has been two years since officials at the Republican Party of Florida signed a controversial agreement to pay ousted chairman Jim Greer the remainder of his 2010 salary.

It would have cost the party about $124,000.

Instead, the party has already paid more than $260,000 to three Tallahassee lawyers who are defending the party, former chairman John Thrasher, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon against a civil suit brought by Greer over the agreement.

And there is no end in sight.

A campaign finance report filed earlier this month indicates the party has paid Stephen Dobson $88,276, Steven R. Andrews $101,509 and Dean R. LeBoeuf $70,299. Dobson and Andrews are lawyers representing the party. Andrews also represented Cannon, but is now representing Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and fundraiser who is a witness in the case. LeBoeuf represents Haridopolos.

The report does not yet include payment of fees to lawyer Kenneth Sukhia, who is representing Thrasher.

A number of other witnesses have also hired lawyers, making the civil suit into a mid-summer bonanza for the capital's legal community.

Greer, meanwhile, says he is broke. His family is living on food stamps and his children have no health insurance. Greer has been unable to pay Damon Chase, the Lake Mary lawyer who represents Greer in the civil case and in a pending criminal case stemming from Greer's time as party chairman.

-- Lucy Morgan

Trial of former RPOF chair Jim Greer postponed until after the general election

The criminal trial for former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer has been postponed until the week of Nov. 12.

Orlando Circuit Judge Marc Lubet on Thursday ordered a continuance after Greer's lawyer, Damon Chase, asked for more time to review documents he is subpoenaing from the Republican Party of Florida. Chase said he wants to be sure he can review any emails, notes, memos and reports that mention Victory Strategies LLC, the company Greer is accused of using to get almost $200,000 out of the party.

Greer had been scheduled to face trial on July 30.

The decision is good news for Florida Republicans who were dreading the spectacle of a trial that could expose the inner workings of a party in turmoil just weeks before Florida hosts the Republican National Convention.

Greer is charged with money laundering and multiple counts of fraud.

-- Katie Sanders and Lucy Morgan, Tampa Bay Times staff writers

RPOF uses voter purge as pro-Scott message

With a heady surge of voter approval over his handling of the voter purge, and a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give the state access to its immigration list, the Republican Party of Florida sees a message moment.

They want Floridians to spread the word that Gov. Rick Scott, whose approval ratings have been like quicksand, has had a victory.

In a letter to RPOF supporters today, Gov. Rick Scott does something rare in politics. He doesn't ask for money. Instead, he touts the "significant victory for the integrity of our election system" and asks people to spread the word on social media.

Mark Ferrulo of Progress Florida sees the message as something else. "That certainly removes whatever veneer of non-partisanship was left on this affront to democracy and blatant attempt to disenfranchise voters they’d prefer not vote,'' he said in a statement.

Here's the email:

Gambling lobbyist Dunbar praises Tom Lee, who fires back

Tallahassee gambling lobbyist Marc Dunbar wrote a fund-raising letter to his clients on the letterhead of his law firm (Pennington Moore Wilkinson Bell & Dunbar), urging them to support former Sen. Tom Lee in his Republican Senate primary against Rep. Rachel Burgin in East Hillsborough's District 24.

Calling the race "a clear choice between a pro-gambling moderate (Lee) and a stark anti-gambling conservative (Burgin)," Dunbar extolled the many occasions in which Lee came to the rescue of the parimutuel industry, including siding with Democrats Steve Geller and Debbie Wasserman Schultz to implement voter-approved slot machines in South Florida. Lee was Senate president when that occurred in 2005.

Dunbar is an astute lobbyist who has to know that Senate District 24 has many church-going social conservatives who oppose gambling and that being lumped in with liberals such as Geller and Wasserman Schultz is probably not the ideal way to garner Republican votes (read the Dunbar letter below).  

A closer look also reveals a troubled history between Lee and Dunbar. In 2005, three senators went off on a $48,000, two-day, all-expense-paid trip to Canada, courtesy of Magna Entertainment Corp., a gambling company, whose lobbyist was Marc Dunbar. When the Republican Party stepped in to pay for the trip and spare the senators an ethics problem, Lee ordered an investigation (story is here).

Sens. Mike Bennett, Dennis Jones and the late Jim King took that trip, as did then-Rep. Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg.

Asked to comment on Dunbar's letter, Lee called Dunbar "a political operative to the Rachel Burgin campaign," and said: "The letter is clearly designed to become an instrument of the Burgin campaign in an effort to mislead the voters about the expansion of gambling in Florida. I do not support the expansion of gambling in Florida."

Burgin said she's the only one in the race who's completely opposed to gambling, and cited her no vote in 2009 against the deal that allowed casino gambling on Seminole Indian reservation casinos that cost her a committee assignment. Lee fired back that Burgin has gotten money from gambling interests, the Hartman & Tyner parimutuel firm and Save Our Internet Access (internet cafes).

"You can't take away a voting record," Burgin said. "How can it (the letter) be a fabrication?"

Geller, a lawyer in Broward County who was a staunch supporter of gambling interests, described Lee as "ambivalent" on gambling issues. But he did recall that Lee played a role in passing a 2003 bill that expanded cardroom operations at Florida tracks -- one of the bills Dunbar cites in his letter.  

Lee says the tipoff that Dunbar's letter is phony is the lobbyist's repeated use of the word "gambling," when the industry has long preferred the less sinister-sounding word "gaming." Dunbar stands behind the letter but he declined comment. Another mystery: Lee has been raising money for nearly a month, but his campaign report shows nomoney from Dunbar or his clients. Yet Dunbar's June 22 letter says: "Tom needs your support now!"

"This is just the latest creative and clever attempt to discredit me because of my stance against public corruption in Tallahassee," Lee said. "Marc Dunbar was on that plane." Lee says he'll refuse any campaign money from gambling interests in his campaign. 

However, Lee is a leadership-backed Senate candidate, and the parimutuel industry is a big contributor to political slush funds controlled by Sens. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, and Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, both of whom want Lee to win. Burgin notes that the electrioneering group that is most strongly supporting Lee, the Liberty Foundation of Florida, lists the same street address as Rhett O'Doski, a lobbyist who is representing MGM Resorts International Inc., operator of Las Vegas casinos. 

-- Steve Bousquet

White House spox thanks Republican Party of Florida for touting good economic news

In a press gaggle with the White House's principal deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest (who had the misfortune of repping 2006 Florida gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis) thanks the Republican Party of Florida for talking about good economic numbers, which have put President Barack Obama and Gov. Rick Scott on the same page for a few months now:

MR. EARNEST:  Good morning, everybody.  Welcome aboard Air Force One as we wing our way to the Sunshine State.  I have some brief opening remarks, and then we'll open it up to questions.

In Orlando this afternoon, the President will speak to NALEO about his efforts to help America's middle-class families and America's economy recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression.  He'll note that we've made progress but we have a long way to go, and he's continuing to push Congress to act on legislation that will support our economy, support responsible homeowners, and put construction workers, first responders and teachers back to work.

I'll note some statistics recently cited by the Republican Party of Florida that bear out the progress that we've made and the work that remains to be done.  Specifically, the Florida Republicans note that the unemployment rate in Florida has declined for 11 consecutive months and that more than 99,000 private sector jobs have been created in Florida alone over the last year and a half.

Yet the President is not satisfied.  And unfortunately for our economy, Republicans in Congress won't act on legislation submitted by the President that would put by our estimates -- or by some estimates, I should say -- these are actually outside estimates -- 1 million people back to work.  This stalemate isn't good for our economy, but it reflects the choice in this election....

RPOF is shocked --shocked!-- that Earnest would do this. It's statement:

Today, White House deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest, cited information from the Republican Party of Florida regarding the continued drop in unemployment in our state, claiming that President Obama was responsible. However, the facts seem to tell a different story.

 

When President Obama took office in January 2009, unemployment in Florida was 8.7% and was up to 10.9% in January 2011, when Governor Rick Scott took office. Since Scott has been Governor, Florida's unemployment rate has dropped to 8.6%-the lowest we've seen since December 2008. Governor Scott has put in place policies that have cut taxes for small businesses, streamlined government and reduced unnecessary regulation. It is these changes that have been critical to Florida's ongoing recovery.

 

"Florida has seen increases in job creation and economic growth in spite of what the Obama Administration and Democrats in Washington have done to hinder it, and that is thanks to the common-sense policies put in place by Governor Scott," said RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry. "However, Florida now needs a national partner in the White House who will help amplify the growth we have seen in our state, and that is exactly what Governor Mitt Romney will do."

Of rifts in Jim Greer's legal camp and sloppy, trashy Tampa TV reporting at WTSP

James Cheney Mason and Donald A. Lykkebak, two Orlando lawyers representing former GOP Chairman Jim Greer, want out.

Mason is asking an Orlando circuit judge to allow him to withdraw from the criminal case scheduled for trial on July 30. Greer is charged with money laundering, grand theft and fraud in connection with money he received from the GOP while he was chairman of the party.

Greer says his other lawyer, Damon Chase of Lake Mary, is prepared to take the case to trial.

We don't know the reasons (lawyers ought not and don't talk about their clients), but there's good circumstantial evidence to suggest that Mason -- who successfully represented "tot mom" Casey Anthony last year -- has had enough of Greer as of late.