Judson Sapp amends financial disclosures to show source of campaign loans

Judson Sapp filed an amendment financial disclosure form showing that he did loan money to his campaign.

Florida’s 3rd Congressional District Republican candidate Judson Sapp has amended his federal personal financial disclosures to show a potential source of $500,000 in loans he made to his campaign.

Sapp, one of seven Republicans battling for the August 18 primary nomination to run in CD 3, had come under scrutiny after campaign reports showed he’d lent a quarter million dollars to his own campaign in March, while his personal financial disclosures he’d filed with Congress didn’t didn’t disclose any assets to show he had that sort of money to begin with.

The scrutiny was reported last week by Florida Politics.

Since that report, a new set of campaign finance reports was disclosed late last week showing that Sapp had made a second $250,000 personal loan to his campaign, bringing his total contribution to his own campaign to $500,000.

A new amendment that Sapp digitally filed Sunday with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives shows that he had some assets after all.

The amendment lists he has an asset with the W. J. Sapp Trust, which has a total value of between $250,000-$500,000. The amendment also discloses that he received between $100,000 and $1 million in income from that asset in the period between Jan. 1, 2019, and May 15, 2020.

That would be sufficient money to cover the two $250,000 loans that Sapp made to his CD 3 election campaign, on March 31, and again on June 26. The trust is the first and only asset that Sapp has listed for his personal finances. He has not listed any liabilities.

Campaign officials had said earlier that the money had come from the estate of his late mother and the sale of a house. But nothing of the sort had been listed in his previously filed federal financial disclosures for 2018, 2019, or 2020.

The new amendment includes a note that states, “Interest in trust established for monetary legal settlement with State of Florida regarding eminent domain case.”

The seven Republicans and three Democrats are competing for the GOP nomination to replace U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho in the north central Florida district.

The latest campaign finance reports, for the period of April 1 through June 30, show that with the $500,000 Sapp lent his own campaign his campaign committee has raised a total of $746,000, and entered July with $486,000 left to spend.

Among other Republicans, physician James St. George added just over $500,000 to his campaign account between April 1 and June 30 and entered July with about $635,000 in the bank. Kat Cammack, a former Yoho staffer,  raised just under $255,000 over the past three months,  and ended the quarter with about $330,000 left to spend.