Finance
Former state Senator Artiles found guilty of campaign finance and registration violations
Former Florida Sen. Frank Artiles, an ex-Marine who more recently has shaped political campaigns as a lobbyist and consultant, was found guilty Monday of campaign finance and voter registration violations in a trial that showed the underbelly of Florida politics.
It took a Miami-Dade jury just over six hours to reach a unanimous verdict in a case built around political operatives and a “ghost candidate” who likely tipped a tight election. Sparked by a scheme to help Senate Republicans flip a seat in 2020, the two-week trial engrossed Florida’s political establishment from Miami to Tallahassee.
Artiles and his attorneys stood stoic as the verdict was read, their hands clasped in front of them, family members and friends standing along rows of benches behind. The former senator was fingerprinted but not handcuffed — his family surrounding him blocking the view — before being released by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O.
Artiles wouldn’t comment as the group made its way out of the courtroom. Defense attorney Frank Quintero thanked the jurors, then promised an appeal. As he addressed the media, Quintero said he found it helpful that jurors listed all the instances they considered excessive contributions from Artiles to Alexis Rodriguez, an independent candidate whose only purpose in the race was to hurt the Democratic incumbent.
“They were actually business transactions that he [Rodriguez] screwed Mr. Artiles for,” said Quintero. “It’s going to be a long fight. This fight is not over.”
Artiles, 51, married with two daughters, was found guilty of excessive campaign contributions, conspiracy to commit excessive contributions and falsely swearing an oath, all felonies that could carry five-year sentences. He was cleared of a fourth charge, aiding a false registration.
His convictions could land him in prison for as many as 15 years, though that long a term is unlikely.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle applauded the jury for understanding the case’s complexities and realizing that Artiles was the “mastermind” of the “ghost candidate scandal.”
“These felony convictions show that the jurors agreed that we can not tolerate the violation of our laws to gain a political advantage,” she said in a prepared statement.
Judge de la O is expected to sentence Artiles some time after Oct. 21.
READ MORE: Lobbyist said she heard Artiles brag about election win.
During the two-week trial, it was explained how a long-time Republican party operative reached out to Artiles for help in the 2020 race for the District 37 Senate seat, which at the time covered a large swath of Miami-Dade County from Miami Beach south and through Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay.
Lead prosecutor Tim VanderGiesen explained to jurors how the former state senator — after working out a contract agreement with the owner of a Gainesville-area Republican political research and marketing firm — engineered a plan to run and promote a machine parts salesman as a third-party candidate in the race in order to siphon votes from the Democratic front-runner.
The plan worked.
Ileana Garcia, a former Spanish radio host and founder of Latinas for Trump, defeated Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez by a mere 32 votes after a recount. VanderGiesen told jurors that Alexis Rodriguez — the ghost candidate running as an independent — was promised $50,000 by Artiles. In a race decided by less than three-dozen votes after a runoff, more than 6,000 residents voted for Alexis Rodriguez.
The payoffs came in different forms, prosecutors said. Besides four payments totaling $22,000 in cash, Alexis Rodriguez was given another $22,000 through tuition payments for his daughter, money alleged to be going to the purchase of a truck for Artiles’ daughter and reimbursements. In total, the state said Alexis Rodriguez collected $44,708.03 in cash and gifts.
Artiles was paid $90,000 to help win Miami races by Data Targeting founder Patrick Bainter, a top consultant for Florida’s Senate Republicans. Bainter placed another $100,000 in a political action committee associated with Artiles.
READ MORE: ‘Knock yourself out.’ Top Florida GOP operative blessed Artiles’ ‘ghost candidate’ pitch
SENATE SEAT UNRAVELED QUICKLY
Artiles served three terms in the Florida House before winning a Senate seat in 2016. His senate term unraveled quickly. He resigned less than a year after being elected and after using racial slurs and uttering profanities while talking to a group of Black elected leaders in Tallahassee.
Then, just over a year after Garcia’s unexpected 2020 victory, Artiles was charged with the four felonies. Alexis Rodriguez was charged with the same four felonies, but avoided conviction in exchange for his testimony against Artiles.
During closing arguments Monday morning, defense attorney Jose Quiñon told jurors the plot to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez began with the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the main campaign vehicle for Florida’s Senate Republicans. The committee contacted Bainter, and Bainter, looking for information on the ground in Miami, reached out to some folks he knew in West Palm Beach. They recommended Artiles.
Aritles, who knew Alexis Rodriguez through a family member, promised him he would be coached and wouldn’t have to campaign.
Under Florida law, none of that is illegal. Directly giving a candidate more than $1,000, however, is.
And Monday, on the verdict form, jurors wrote out exactly which acts they believe Artiles committed that were illegal. They listed six instances when the lobbyist gave the candidate money or gifts totaling $26,812.92. Among the payments: $2,000 to cover the registration fee to become a candidate, $6,784.39 to cover tuition for the candidate’s daughter’s private high school, a $2,400 rent payment and $9,000 from Artiles’ brother-in-law.
During the trial, Alexis Rodriguez said the only reason he agreed to change his party affiliation and run in the race was because he was broke and just divorced. He told jurors he was ashamed and said the only reason he agreed to the plan was because he needed money.
Garcia, the unexpected victor, has always been controversial. She once said she believed people could outgrow being gay, but later apologized. She also authored a bill to spend $5 million on former President Donald Trump’s legal bills. The bill didn’t pass. Jose Javier Rodriguez now works as an assistant secretary for the Labor Department in Washington D.C.
DULUTH — The Duluth Homegrown Music Festival is seeking both new operational leadership and a solution to financial filing issues that caused the organization to lose its federal tax-exempt status, which it has not held since 2022.
The organization is currently operating as a taxable nonprofit, confirmed Don Ness, the former Duluth mayor who serves as president of Homegrown’s
board of directors.
Ness and the board are working to discern whether there might be any outstanding tax liabilities in the wake of an apparent filing lapse.
“It’s a serious matter that requires diligence to do things right, and to correct past oversight, and to make sure that we are in full compliance with all tax and regulatory requirements,” Ness said. “The board is 100% committed to that course of action.”
As the Duluth Monitor first reported, Homegrown had its federal tax-exempt status revoked in 2022 after failing to make required financial reports for three years. The Monitor also reported that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has notified the organization it may be in violation of state law requiring the proper registration of soliciting charities.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“All but one of us have been on for less than a year,” Ness said of the current board members. “We’ve been committed to saying, ‘hey, we need to improve the points of accountability.’”
The organization will also require new operational leadership. Co-directors Cory Jezierski and Dereck Murphy-Williams resigned earlier this month, after leading Homegrown through four successful festivals.
“My contract ended at the end of May, and I knew a few days later that I did not want to continue in that position,” Jezierski said. “Simply put, it was the best thing for my mental health. It’s a job that requires many, many hours and a lot of work, and it can be very stressful as well.”
Amy Arntson / Duluth Media Group file photo
Murphy-Williams did not respond to an interview request for this article, nor did preceding Homegrown director Melissa LaTour. According to LaTour’s
LinkedIn profile,
she was Homegrown director from 2016 to 2022.
Jason Beckman, a recent president who is no longer serving on the board, responded to a News Tribune email but did not provide an interview availability before this article went to press.
Ness does not believe the reporting lapses were due to any ill intent. He praised Jezierski and Murphy-Williams for their success managing festival operations. “They cared deeply about the festival,” he said. “It’s amazing to see that our community continues to support this really unique and special festival.”
“Those guys run a hell of a festival,” said Scott Lunt, festival founder and a current board member. “I think they needed help with bookkeeping.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
By Jezierski’s account, issues with the festival’s tax status became apparent shortly after he became co-director. “We went to file taxes, they were rejected,” Jezierski said. “At that time we, of course, didn’t know why right away, but once we started pulling on that thread, we unraveled a whole lot of the problems that were going on.”
Jezierski said “it took a long time to try to get any sort of help” from the board, but said that by the time he and Murphy-Williams left the organization, “everything had been turned over to be reconciled” with a financial professional.
Ness, like Lunt, was deeply involved with Homegrown in its first decade but had not had an official role with the festival since then. After launching the festival in 1999 and running it on his own for several years, Lunt was “burnt out,” Ness remembered.
Derek Montgomery / Duluth Media Group file photo
After a transition period during which the festival was run in partnership with the Ripsaw newspaper, Homegrown established a nonprofit organization in 2006 with Ness as festival director. Ness subsequently stepped down when he was elected mayor in 2007.
By 2025, Ness was in his current position as executive director of the Ordean Foundation.
“I was approached by a couple of longtime music scenesters,” Ness recalled. “They said, ‘There are questions about (Homegrown’s) nonprofit status. There are questions about some governance issues. We’re concerned.’”
Ness agreed to join the board, and became president. The 2026 festival ran smoothly from an operational standpoint, but Ness found the financial reporting to be lacking.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“The last board meeting that we had prior to the (co-directors’) resignations was intended to be an overview of the festival that was a month before,” Ness said. “I certainly felt very uncomfortable with how little financial information we were receiving.”
Lunt also joined the board in 2025, marking his first time serving in that capacity. He said the new board has been spending significant time addressing the accounting and reporting issues.
“Every year at Homegrown time I’m like, ‘I should get more involved,’ and then I don’t,” Lunt said. “Then this board thing came up, and it was kind of sold to me as, like, four meetings a year. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s perfect.’ And now we’re meeting weekly.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
Although it’s unclear how the organization’s finances will look when the accounting and reporting issues have been fully addressed, along with any outstanding tax liabilities, both Ness and Lunt said they are confident the annual festival will continue without interruption.
“The organization will continue,” Ness said. “The festival will continue. Homegrown is in no danger in terms of its viability.” The financial documentation Ness initially received indicated budgeted revenues of about $140,000, against about $130,000 in expenses.
“Financially, I think we’re in a great spot. We have the money to hire the (financial) professionals, and we have (done so),” Lunt said. “We were hoping that we could get all this sorted out before it had to become more public.”
“We poured countless hours into this festival, and this is how it ends, with everyone talking about this,” Jezierski said. “It’s rough.”
“There’s a DIY ethos that is really at the core of Homegrown,” reflected Ness. “We’re throwing a music festival that isn’t waiting for some famous band from the East Coast to bless us with their presence. We are doing this on our own.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
That DIY spirit also means “you’re kind of passing wisdom down from person to person, and sometimes that’s imperfect.” Ness continued. “The ways that we do things evolve over time, because it’s not a buttoned-down corporate sort of thing. That can create its own set of challenges.”
“It’s self-supporting,” said Lunt about the festival. “It’s widely volunteer-run. You do need to pay a couple people, obviously, to keep track of some things, but it’s going to be strong into the future. It’s gone through its bumps before.”
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From AI that assists to AI that decides
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Consumer confidence has plunged among traditionally optimistic younger adults amid fears for their personal finances and the wider economy, figures show.
GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index remained unchanged at an overall score of minus 23 in June.
However, the analyst said this was was “misleading as, beneath the surface, there are new signs that confidence is weakening”.
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “The biggest fall this month is among those aged 16 to 29, traditionally one of the most optimistic groups.
“Here confidence has dropped 11 points over the past month to minus two, the lowest level seen for two years, driven by large falls in views on both their own personal finances and the wider economy.
“More broadly, there are now no demographic groups with a positive confidence score, including higher-income households earning £50,000 or more, who have slipped back into negative territory as of June.
“Confidence remains subdued and vulnerable to further economic or political uncertainty.”
Overall, confidence in personal finances over the coming year remained flat at minus two, four points lower than this time last year.
The measures of both personal finances and the economy over the previous 12 months were both slightly down, by two points and three points respectively, “reflecting the sense that things have been extremely tough over the last year for so many”, GfK said.
The only measure to increase was expectations for the wider economy over the next 12 months, up two points to minus 36 but still eight points below this time last year.
The major purchase index, an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items, remained at minus 20, four points lower than June last year.
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