A.G. Gancarski
More research has revealed that Zakee Fur’qan‘s political contributions in recent years extend beyond Mayor Alvin Brown and U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown to at least one Duval County School Board candidate.
A Duval County contribution search shows donations from his company, Freedom Lawn and Landscape, and from his wife Hanan Fur’qan to candidate Constance Hall. Three 2012 contributions from those entities totalled $650. Hall and Fur’qan refused repeated attempts for comment. Meanwhile, the Duval County School District is checking records to see whether either of Fur’qan’s companies, the lawn service or Blissful Tissue, have received any contracts from the district.
Before changing his identity from Leon Nelson in 2000, he apparently was found guilty of second degree murder. Years have passed, obviously, but one other politician who got a contribution and an endorsement from him, Mayor Brown, has summarily repudiated Fur’qan and vowed to give contributions to charity.
Brown was endorsed by Fur’qan in March. The Jacksonville mayor’s campaign manager, Isaiah Nelson, repudiated the man the campaign had trumpeted for his endorsement just weeks before.
“We don’t know this individual, and he has no role whatsoever in our campaign,” Isaiah Nelson said this past week. “There were 48 business owners on this list, contributed by local community organizations. Clearly, he represents exactly the kind of lawbreaker the mayor has zero tolerance for, and we condemn his actions in the strongest possible terms.”
Fur’qan has given more money to the Friends of Corrine Brown PAC than to any other outlet: $1,500 in 2012. Neither Brown’s offices nor Fur’qan is talking about that, though, which given this reporter’s dealings with both is not surprising.
