115 East Park Ave., Suite 1, Tallahassee: the eye of Florida's gross grift hurricane

DoE/Jefferson, the ghost candidates, and Polk's own Rick Nolte overlap at the address election lawyer Richard Coates shares with (at least) $78M in (at least) 92 "dark money" entities.

Images may cause this article to truncate in email. Click through to the actual site if you need to. Also, to be clear, other than what has been charged in the ghost candidate scandal, all the political money laundering described within is legal, as far as I know. The “crime,” as I see it, is lame, cowardly, anti-civic, gross selfishness.

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Five political committees that share a Tallahassee address with the Coates Law Firm seemed very very concerned about domestic violence in Florida’s primary election cycles in 2020 and 2022.

They were so concerned that they created and funded a political committee called “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” with $170,000 in seed money. “Stop Domestic Violence Florida,” like its parent committees, shared the Coates firm’s address at 115 East Park Avenue, Suite 1. You can see the contributing committees in this image from the Florida Division of Elections.

Each of the five “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” funding committees has the same chair and treasurer — a guy named William Stafford Jones, who goes by Stafford (because of course he does).

Richard Coates, he of the Coates law firm at 115 East Park Ave., Suite 1, is the registered agent for three of the committees. Stafford Jones is the agent for two.

Interestingly, “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” is the only one of 77 different committees I found with a 115 East Park address that does not include Stafford Jones or Richard Coates as either chair, treasurer, or registered agent. Some person named Kori Schott serves all three roles for “Stop Domestic Violence Florida.”

Why?

Well, take a look at the “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” expenditures. As you can see, “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” spent all its money on either big campaign consultants: Electioneering Consulting (Jones and Coates); Public Concepts LLC (Randy Nielsen); Data Targeting Research (Pat Bainter); Right Aim Media; or on other 115 East Park Avenue committees.

I would love to see the awesome anti-domestic violence mailers and electioneering content that Jones, Nielsen, Bainter, and the like produced on this urgent matter. Has anyone seen them?

When I ask myself why poor Kori Schott, whoever that is, took the roles almost exclusively reserved for Stafford Jones and Richard Coates on the other 76 committees, I wonder if we’re seeing professional political money launderers demonstrate something like … shame.

Can that be?

Have we stumbled upon an actual moral line for these guys? Did they not want their names on a fake anti-domestic violence committee that funneled money to themselves and the other “consultants” who grift basically every candidate or cause in every party to the bone?

I wrote a while back about how badly these these lazy, money-grubbing consultants scam with their mediocrity even the evil people who pay them. (Randy Nielsen of Public Concepts LLC makes an appearance in that earlier article, as does Jefferson County.)

Indeed, when I say/write the word “grift,” there’s a picture of “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” in my head — of casually using the fake promise of trying to reduce real suffering and violence as a rhetorical shield for legal money laundering for yourself.

Tell that to your kids and grandkids, bros. I bet it makes them proud.

77 committees; 15 corporations; one address at the heart of Florida’s grift, scandal, dysfunction and moral rot

I have never fashioned myself a campaign finance expert — even as an elected official. It’s very tedious and takes a while to learn even the basics. Moreover, the people involved in big political finance are gross. It’s an unpleasant way to spend time.

I always just assumed, correctly, that corrupt and self-interested money will find its way into races if it wants. I didn’t bother to go too deeply on the precise mechanisms at work …

… until the last few days.

In the course of snooping around some stuff about the 2020 school superintendent election in Jefferson County, it began to dawn on me that many, many political committees share the same address in Tallahassee: 115 East Park Ave., Suite 1.

So I googled and got, ta-da: the Coates Law Firm.

Here it is below, circled. By my count, at least $78,150,000 in political money has flowed through this little office to be legally laundered over the last few years. I hope some of that money flowed into the nice looking restaurant next door.

How to deliver the money you spend in Publix to a handful of gross, grifty consultants

Basically all the biggest names in Florida business/capital have dropped thousands into the East Park committees. These are not small dollar donor operations.

A guy named Patrick Neal, a big Sarasota-area builder/developer and former state senator, has dropped $2 million into a committee called “Conservatives” just since 2020. He does this in regular $100K or $250K installments, like he’s leaving a tip to the servers.

Publix has given $75K to the “Freedom First Committee” and $25K to the “First Coast Business Foundation,” most recently in 2022. Those are just the Publix contributions I noticed. I’m sure there are many more.

Almost all of this traceable, named money donated by actual people or business groups flows into “Stop Domestic Violence Florida”-type committees; then out to other committees; then out to individual campaigns; or directly into the bank accounts of the small universe of political consultants who do “third party” mailers/advertising in Florida’s GOP state power apparatus.

These are, of course, the same small universe of political consultants who do most of the campaign work for the actual campaigns — so they get paid by campaigns and committees alike. It’s basically like Georgia paying somebody to help Georgia beat FSU’s scout team. It’s very very dumb money, honestly. But Publix and Pat Neal have dumb money to burn in politics.

The consultants *are* the committees

At least 90 percent (probably all, I have to go back and check) of the committees registered to 115 East Park end up paying some combination of: Data Targeting, Electioneering Consulting, Public Concepts LLC, or Right Aim Media (which I think is this, but Tampa addresses on expenditures don’t precisely match.)

In some cases, if not most cases, these committees are those consultants. The consultants set up these committees as a mechanism for the Publixes and Pat Neals of the world to drop big money on them.

For example, Stafford Jones and Richard Coates are the officers for “Electioneering Consulting”; and multiple of the East Park committees have email addresses that read “XXX@electioneeringconsulting.com.” Stafford Jones’ kid was an “intern” for “Data Targeting” and Pat Bainter, according to sworn testimony in the ghost candidates case. (More on that in a moment.)

Because I can get a little obsessive, I have created a linked spreadsheet that lists all the 115 East Park Avenue committees (77) and active corporations (15) I could find via various public searches. Here’s a little taste of how it looks:

Seeing little summaries of contributions and expenditures side-by-side starkly demonstrates how these committees are mostly delivery mechanisms for buying consultants yachts, with massive money transferred from “respectable” business and personal brands to largely unnecessary political hacks.

I will send this spreadsheet to anyone who wants it. I think it’s a useful journalism and citizenship tool; and I would encourage anyone to build it out further. You can bet more committees are coming or that I’ve missed some. (I’ll delve into the corporations some other time. The corporation space is even shadier. See this. But the scope is smaller.)

The Coates intersection of Nolte, DoE/Jefferson, and the ghost candidates

Richard Coates and Stafford Jones and crew are old hat for most politicos and political reporters.

But I first heard of Richard Coates in 2023 because of the elections complaint I filed against gross Polk County School Board Member Rick “T.I.T.S.” Nolte — so nicknamed because he wrote the following on Facebook a while back and now gets to prowl the halls of your daughter’s middle school with Ron DeSantis’ endorsement. Nolte is Polk County’s smaller-time version of a gross Ziegler.

Nolte was the only Moms4Liberty-style candidate who managed to narrowly get a seat in Polk County. We beat the other two soundly because we took the fight to them openly and morally. And we’ve since neutered Nolte into gross silence.

Nolte complaint defense

I filed Florida Election Commission complaints against Nolte, who was endorsed by Ron DeSantis, for felony and misdemeanor campaign violations in the 2022 campaign. Full background here if you want it. The Nolte campaign, which ran in part on cash and mostly on indifference to any rules, was an absolute finance shit show.

Somehow, Richard Coates ended up representing Nolte in his defense against my complaints. In the end, Nolte agreed to a $1,250 fine. I’ve heard rumors that he paid Coates at least $10K. I’m happy for Coates or Nolte to confirm or deny.

The mystery about Nolte, who is no way a power figure in Polk County, is: who managed to finagle a half-hearted, but real, endorsement for him from Ron DeSantis?

I still don’t know. But I would bet a lot of money that the same person who did that also got him access to Coates, who appears to be the GOP superlawyer of election stuff. It was a good way to avoid “DeSantis removes school board member he endorsed” headlines in the middle of his embarrassing presidential primary campaign.

I can’t imagine Coates would otherwise agree to spend time on a gross yokel like Nolte — $10K or not.

And I suspect Coates’ position at the clerical gate of $78M in legally laundered GOP campaign cash had a role in the Polk State Attorney’s Office shameful and laughable decision not to investigate the full scope of Nolte’s election violations.

After all, Polk Sheriff Grady Judd has received $1,000 campaign contributions from multiple 115 East Park committees.

DoE/Jefferson

In 2020, a still different type of committee, called “Conservatives in Action” and chaired by Public Concepts LLC consultant Randy Nielson, teamed up with Jones/Coates to pump $210,000 of Manny Diaz-adjacent, Academica-adjacent, Ralph Arza-adjacent charter school money into: 1) the Jefferson County superintendent race 2) an Orange County school board race 3) and the Polk County School Board races, including mine.

The Jones/Coates committees were called “Florida Education News (FEN)” and the “Florida Accountability Fund (FAF).”

“FAF” paid for mailers supporting Eydie Tricquet, who was running for Jefferson superintendent in 2020. “FEN,” using the Nielsen charter school money, paid for attack mailers against Tricquet’s two opponents.

That’s right, Jefferson folks, the guys who are the subject of the federal grand jury subpoena in the grifting of your public school system really wanted Tricquet to become superintendent in 2020. Ralph Arza was backing Eydie Tricquet and attacking her opponents. That’s curious, don’t you think? I do. I’ll come back to it in the future.

Again, I’ve already written about these committees and the Jefferson/PE1 connection in an article titled: “Degenerate high school: meet the geniuses behind the grifting of Jefferson County and the birth of Public Enemy Number 1”. So I won’t rehash all that here.

But, to summarize, as it relates to me: it appears that Ralph Arza/Academica/Charter Schools USA paid Randy Nielsen to pay Stafford Jones and Richard Coates to pay Randy Nielsen to name me “Public Enemy Number 1” — (along with Karen Castor Dentel).

Thanks, geniuses.

Ghost candidates

I always suspected I’d find lots of the same people overlapping in the political aspects of the DoE/Jefferson and the ghost candidate scandal. I just hadn’t done this on the connections until I got time between Christmas and the New Year:

The ghost candidate scandal is quite simple when you step back from it: Florida’s mountain of dumb “dark money” (which isn’t that dark) was culled from the checks written by the state’s forces of economic power.

It paid for several independent “candidates,” who did no campaigning, to join a few key races. The economic power money mountain also paid for some advertising on behalf of those “candidates” who did no campaigning.

These independent “candidates” siphoned a few votes from Democratic candidates in key, close races, and helped deliver narrow Republican wins. That is, apparently, illegal, in some of its particulars. It’s really as simple as that.

The complexity comes from the particulars — from the mechanisms and relationships that led to the gross Frank Artiles becoming the fall guy patsy for a clearly systemic function. Annie Martin and Jason Garcia did spectacular reporting on that stuff.

The East Park committees are by no means all of the economic power money system that belched up the “innovative” ghost candidate scheme; but they are a big chunk of it.

Indeed, Stafford Jones co-starred with Frank Artiles and Data Targeting owner Pat Bainter in the sworn statement federal investigators took from Lance Gardner, Data Targeting’s CFO, in September 2021. Here’s one crucial example. The Q is a federal prosecutor. The A is Lance Gardner.

“Economic Improvement Fund, Inc.” is a “social welfare” corporation, not a political committee. Its rules of disclosure are even murkier than committees. You will be shocked to learn that Richard Coates is the registered agent for Economic Improvement Fund, Inc. and Stafford Jones is one of its three “directors.”

“Florida Stronger Inc.” is also a “social welfare” corporation, whose registered agent is Emmett Mitchell IV, who goes by “Bucky” (because of course he does), whose address is listed as, of course, 115 East Park, Suite 1, on the incorporation paperwork. Bucky shows up on a few of the 115 East Park committees, too.

(Bucky Mitchell and Richard Coates appear to be now former partners in the Coates Law Firm and one-time co-counsel for the Republican Party of Florida. As a bonus, Bucky Mitchell is apparently the author of the infamous “felon” purge of the 2000 presidential election that may have made George W. Bush president.)

The $100,000 wire transfer referred to above, which moved funds from one 115 East Park- agented social welfare corporation to another, was requested by Artiles and Bainter the day after the most crucial events that led to the Artiles prosecution. Here’s an excellent summary story from the Tampa Bay Times, with a clear timeline of the key Artiles moments.

And just for fun, Stafford Jones’ son, Stephen, was identified as a former “intern” for Data Targeting by the CFO Lance Gardner in his sworn statement.

I’m going to come back to ghost candidates and the “social welfare” corporations in some other article.

But for now, I think it’s most important to understand that Artiles, a henchman, is staring at a 2024 trial that could put him in federal prison. Stafford Jones, Bucky Mitchell, and Richard Coates, gatekeeper and clerks of $70-ish million in political money, aren’t.

My favorite committees

Other than “Stop Domestic Violence Florida,” here are my favorite 115 East Park committees/corporations tied to the Jones/Coates duo:

1. The Stinky Boot: Funded entirely by $30K from Building Florida’s Future, another East Park committee. Spent $21K on two other East Park committees. No, I don’t get the stinky reference. I thought it might be a restaurant; but I can’t find one so named.

2. Skeeters for Justice: Funded entirely by $48K from two East Park committees. Spent nothing on skeet or justice; but did drop $23,100 on Data Targeting.

3. Women Building the Future: $1.8 million from virtually every major business/advocacy business or business group in the state spent in the service of imposing 6-week forced birth even right wingers don’t want on all their own wives and daughters.

4. Progressives: This is one of the “social welfare” corporations. Since 2016, it has received a total of $550.

5. Very conservative: Kinda unremarkable. It’s just a funny name.

6. Otter Cats for Florida: Funded entirely by $2,335 from two 115 East Park committees. Used mostly to pay the Stafford/Coates “Electioneering Consulting” $2,200, a relative pittance. Your guess is a good as mine what’s going on here — and what the inside joke must be.

The point of having 92 political committees and nonprofits, all with inscrutable or silly names that have nothing whatsoever to do with their mission, and all passing literally millions of dollars between each other, is to make it impossible for anyone – both voters and elected officials – to know who is paying for what.

I think most people see that system — that mountain of absurd corporate welfare for consultants — as an expression of actual political power in our state, which is nominally “Republican” or “conservative” power. But power is not strength, as I’m fond of saying. And I see no coherent, discernible ideology at all operating within the system that produced the ghost candidates and the Zieglers and the deepening stagnation of our state.

It’s just raw, naked dominance and narrow power politics in service of specific economic interests, for whom development of Florida as a livable, long-term home is not a priority of any kind. This soulless, empty approach to politics and policy victimizes and grifts everyone, regardless of party or ideology.

If you care, I’m an NPA who sees himself in a strategic coalition with Democrats and decent, normal GOPers who don’t want to submit to a gross, Jan. 6 dictatorship and who think Florida should be a livable home for everyone — including the people born and raised here, as I was.

So what can we normal people do when faced with this onslaught of private interest that overwhelms the public good in tsunamis of cynicism named “The Stinky Boot?”

Quite a lot, actually.

A deep, fundamental vein of personal weakness runs through this mountain of money. We should mine it relentlessly. Our petty masters and their clerks are afraid to tell us openly what they believe and pursue — or who they enrich. They confuse cowardice with savvy or cleverness.

That’s a weakness to exploit.

Recognize and mock the mediocrity of lazy, immoral money

The first thing to do is laugh. Mock the miserable life choices these people have made.

Would you want to go through your life doing this to feed your family?

Would you want to finesse the same gross checks from the same gross people for the same brain dead mailers or digital ads year-after-year just to ensure Florida’s education system stays as America’s worst; that people born here without capital have no chance of building a comfortable life and buying a home; and that Florida continues its march toward becoming a sort of American Macau for the elderly and people for whom home is somewhere else?

Would you want to create fake candidates for a useless Legislature that has already utterly submitted itself to the dumbest, pettiest dictatorship imaginable? That’s your purpose in life? Controlling the cash spigot for access to that pointless regal court?

Congrats.

We citizens who care about sustaining and developing Florida as a home need to look down on these people who promote this pathetic anti-citizenship, whether they have power over us or not.

De-mystify them. Attack their personal mythologies.

Trust me on this from experience: personal mythology is all these people have. The idea that they are something other than what they actually do in their public lives — the idea that they are smart or important or competent — is all they have. Pretending that they are doing something other than participating like drones in this useless system devoid of all personal agency is all they have. Don’t let them pretend.

Nothing angers them more than ruining their pretend in public; and we want them angry, not smug. Anger weakens them.

Taking personal mythology away from individual participants in a corrupt system far more powerful than you is the only effective means I have ever seen for forcing that system to adjust. And you have to to do it head on, morally, and right in the middle of your communities.

You will not outgrift these people or quietly “play the game” better. You have to make the game personally unpleasant to play, which I think it already is for a lot of them.

Brand mythology is the only reason this gross system exists at all; and economic and public brand is just monetized personal mythology. That’s why Publix and Pat Neal and all the rest put these doofuses between us and them. “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” and the rest are buffers between the citizenry and the direct rule of self-interested economic power.

Publix is infinitely more powerful as an entity than the Dick, Bucky, and Stafford show. But it doesn’t want to rule its customers directly. That might get awkward and unpleasant. It wants to do the tearjerking ads about family and home — and upsell dirty libs like me on good cheese.

Pat Neal wants to be a “philanthropist,” not just another hard-boiled, rich guy political operator devoid of any moral scruples. The first sentence of his own bio reads:

Pat Neal is respected for his business leadership, public service and philanthropy.

LOL. Pat Neal’s money brought you the Ziegler porn show, Sarasota. Don’t kid yourselves. But that’s what they all want: total power over you, wielded by Zieglers — and then your respect, extorted. Don’t give it to them.

The Pat Neals of the world make this gross system run. I respect no one who willingly takes part in it it. No one.

To be clear, I’m just picking on Publix and Pat Neal because it’s easy. I live here in Lakeland, and Publix it makes an easy, prominent object lesson. I also spend a shit ton of money there that ends up in these stupid committees, so I feel a certain entitlement. And Pat Neal’s money is so huge and regular as to demand attention.

But this point goes for every major economic power or interest writing pointless, soulless checks to the 115 East Park committees.

The more we treat their bloated buffers with the personal, moral, and professional contempt they deserve, the more we erode those buffers, the harder those gross checks are to write.

And who knows, maybe one day, if confronted with enough eye-rolling contempt, rich dudes and inheritance babies who write checks to “Stop Domestic Violence Florida” might actually start caring about stopping domestic violence.