The dope is on the table; and the State Attorney and Sheriff are protecting the CCDF and DeSantis

It would take 5 minutes to interrogate Rick Nolte about the felony he *officially* claims to have committed. If it hasn't happened, it's because the sheriff and state attorney don't want it to.

Any serious Polk Sheriff’s Office detective or investigator/prosecutor with the Polk State Attorney’s Office has three distinct and obvious tracks of self-reported CCDF¹/School Board candidate criminality to pursue. Those tracks are:

1. DeSantis-endorsed Rick Nolte’s openly declared felony and misdemeanor cash donations: Rick Nolte, endorsed by Ron DeSantis, reported 10 misdemeanor cash donations and a felony $5200 cash loan/contribution to himself. See the image above; it’s the admission of a felony. Nolte confirmed to committing the misdemeanors by apologizing for them in writing; but he has not amended or addressed the felony in the same way. He told a reporter who cornered him that he “believes” it’s a “clerical error.” But he has not amended the felony admission, which has been a source of news for a month.

2. Two batches of illegal campaign texts: This includes illegal (because they’re unreported) campaign texts described by CCDF candidate Terry Clark and illegal (because they’re anonymous) campaign texts that libeled Polk School Board Member Lisa Miller and her husband. Both groups of texts are misdemeanors. But it is unclear if the texts are the same texts. Full background here.

3. Campaign spending on shirts that don’t seem to be shirts: Nolte claims he spent $2700 in campaign money on “shirts” with a Missouri vendor that doesn’t sell shirts. Falsifying a spending report is a first degree misdemeanor. Also, a handful of other vaguely labeled Nolte spending with that same vendor through June 30 — and another that doesn’t actually exist — totals just slightly more than $7,500. That’s almost exactly the same amount that two other CCDF candidates paid to criminal campaign manager James Dunn in June. Full background here.

The last two tracks require some investigative effort — even though I’ve already done most of the work for free and handed it to anyone with a badge who cares. But both could theoretically take some time to build a definitive legal case for prosecuting what the CCDF criminal slate, as a collective, has said about itself.

But the first track takes no time at all. None. And it’s the only felony track that I know of. And it’s a felony confessed to in writing by the only CCDF candidate who won.

An unambiguous felony confession, in writing

Seriously, if Rick Nolte had written on his campaign finance reporting: “Hey State Attorney Brian Haas and Sheriff Grady Judd, I committed a felony, isn’t it cool!!! Arrest me!” it would not be any less ambiguous than what he actually wrote when he said he gave himself a $5,200 cash contribution/loan. This is from reporter Kim Moore of Lakeland Now, if you don’t believe in my ability to read a statute.

“Nolte has a problem,” said Robert Jarvis, a professor at the Shepard Broad College of Law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

Jarvis cited Florida Statute 106.09, which deals with cash contributions and says “any person who knowingly and willfully makes or accepts a contribution in excess of $5,000 … commits a felony of the third degree.”

(In case you’re wondering why it’s bad to inject large amounts of untraceable cash into campaign spending, imagine that it comes from drug cartels. You can’t trace the origin of cash, politically. We have no idea where Nolte’s $5,200 cash came from, assuming he’s telling the truth, nor can we verify how he spent the cash. Checks and credit card transactions leave records. That’s why the penalty is elevated to felony because the potential for mischief is enormous.)

Nolte has yet to amend or address his six-month-old record of a felony, except to tell Kim Moore: “Yeah, it was a clerical error, I believe.”

So why has he not been charged with the felony he certified in writing?

Obviously, Grady Judd and Brian Haas don’t want to charge him with the felony he told everybody he committed.

Three interrogation scenarios for “Mr. Felon”

It would take less than 5 minutes to verify this felony that Nolte refuses to disavow.

Indeed, here are examples of how I would interview a generic person — let’s call him “Mr. Felon” — who confessed to a campaign finance confession in his official paperwork if I were in Brian Haas’ or Grady Judd’s shoes. The course of the role play depends on “Mr. Felon’s” first answer:

Version 1: “Yes but … “

Billy: Hi Mr. Felon, you’ve declared in your official campaign finance material that you committed a felony by accepting a $5200 cash contribution from yourself. Is that true?

“Mr. Felon” Answer Option 1: Yes, but …

Billy: Sorry, let me stop you right there. Here are some handcuffs. You have the right to remain silent; but you can take a plea deal now, like Christine Thornhill did that prevents you from taking office, bars you from public life for more than a decade, and keeps you out of jail. Otherwise, we’ll try you and make you a convicted felon. Choose quickly.

Also, you’re gonna cooperate with us on all aspects and tracks of our investigation of your buddies involved in the criminal slate of candidates.

Version 2: “It was a clerical error, I believe.”

Let’s try plugging into the “Mr. Felon” scenario Nolte’s only public statement so far about his self-declared felony.

Billy: Hi Mr. Felon, you’ve declared in your official campaign finance material that you committed a felony by accepting a $5200 cash contribution from yourself. Is that true?

Mr. Felon: “It was a clerical error, I believe.”

Billy: You believe?

Mr. Felon: Yes.

Billy: Why do you not know?

Mr. Felon: You mean candidates are supposed to keep track of that? I'm not a politician. Hmmm, maybe my “campaign accountant person”² knows?

Billy: Didn’t you sign the document?

Mr. Felon: Yes, but …

Billy: Let me just stop you there. Can you show me the $5,200 check you wrote your campaign and when it was deposited in your campaign account?

Mr. Felon: Suuuuurrrrrree, I believe I can.

Billy: Get it to me by the end of the day or we’re prosecuting you.

Version 3: “I take the 5th”

Finally, let’s try the 5th amendment approach.

Billy: Hi Mr. Felon, you’ve declared in your official campaign finance material that you committed a felony by accepting a $5200 cash contribution from yourself. Is that true?

Mr. Felon: I choose not to answer on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me.

Billy: Well, that’s fine. The problem with that is that you’ve already incriminated yourself by certifying in an official document that you’ve committed a felony. This courtesy interview was designed to let you exonerate yourself if you could.

So, here are some handcuffs.

You have the right to remain silent; but you can take a plea deal now, like Christine Thornhill did, that prevents you from taking office, bars you from public life for more than a decade and keeps you out of jail. Otherwise, we’ll try you and make you a convicted felon. Choose quickly.

Also, you’re gonna cooperate with us on all aspects and tracks of our investigation of your buddies involved in the criminal slate of candidates.

One of those interviews, at least, should have happened with Rick Nolte four weeks ago at the latest — followed by a press conference.

If they have not — and there is no indication they have — it’s because Rick Nolte, Brian Haas and Grady Judd, as a threesome, do not want to do any such interviews.

I assure you, if I had accidentally reported a felony that wasn’t a felony, I would have amended my stuff the instant I realized it. And I’d be beating down Haas’ door to explain.

The dope is on the table

Bu contrast, I have never seen any political figure of any kind put his own “dope on the table” — to quote The Wire — quite like “T.I.T.S.” Nolte has.

And in 22 years in Polk County, I have never seen more blatant, obvious, pathetic official public corruption deployed to protect politicians or prominent people from embarrassment or electoral harm of their own making.

Again, DeSantis endorsed “T.I.T.S.” Nolte; and Haas and Judd are clearly protecting Ron DeSantis from election headlines that read: “DeSantis endorsement charged with felony and forced out of office.”

And they’re protecting CCDF founding crank and funder Steve Maxwell, who is a well-connected Polk County inheritance baby, apparently, from: “CCDF crank Nolte charged with campaign felony; CCDF’s only win won’t take office”

Maxwell must be really connected for Haas and Judd to tank so themselves so abjectly for him — to make their reputations this vulnerable to me. Maybe they just don’t care. It’s hard out there.

What do you think, Brad Copley?

As I said Sunday, Rick Nolte is nothing.

He’d have been rolled up in a second by Haas and Judd if he was running for Mulberry city commission or something as a random crank — not the embodiment of Ron DeSantis and Steve Maxwell in Polk County.

And you all know I will be strung up in a second if I ever put any dope like Nolte’s on the table. Rightly so.

If you’re humiliated by these facts, professional prosecutors and investigators and deputies, you should be. And “T.I.T.S.” is gonna be overseeing your kids and grandkids, too, because you didn’t do anything about the most obvious felony ever self-reported.

Some of you, Brad Copley, for instance, have long reputations for fanatic attachment to justice and punishing crime. You just gonna take this? Because everybody is laughing at all of you darkly, right now.

Brad, make Haas stop you, physically, from interrogating Nolte about the felony he claims. And if Haas stops you, physically, tell the public.

If you have talked to Nolte about the felony he declared in writing, tell the public. This dude is School Board-member elect. The public is entitled to know if this candidate cheated them to win in the way he says he did.

Anyway, I hope it was worth it, great leaders. The county is so much safer and more moral for your brave action protecting “T.I.T.S.” Nolte so DeSantis and Maxwell don’t get humiliated before the election.

Indeed, the hurricane is quite a stroke of political luck for Nolte, Haas, and Judd.

Nobody is going to think about any of this for a long while, most likely. And any tiny, quiet action will come after the election. That way, I’m sure Haas and Judd are thinking, DeSantis and Maxwell will squeeze the most benefit from Nolte’s self-declared crime while avoiding any public consequence, before they cut him loose like the small-time crank he is and let a victorious DeSantis appoint his replacement.

Well done, impartial judicial system.

1. The so-called County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF) is Polk County’s gross, book-banning, crime-celebrating (and in some cases committing) answer to Moms For Liberty and other similar fake parent groups.

2. At one point Nolte blamed his “campaign person accountant” for a different campaign finance reporting screwup. I just think it’s a funny name.