CD 5 candidate Gary Adler has Election Day court date

He is charged with operating as a contractor without a license

Gary Adler won’t be spending Aug. 18 wooing last-minute voters in Florida’s 5th Congressional District. At least not all of it.

According to Duval County Clerk of Court records, the Jacksonville Republican will spend part of the afternoon in court.

In February, Adler was arrested and charged with operating as a contractor without a license, a first-degree misdemeanor.

The charges followed a 2017 investigation by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation where Adler and his company, Adler Design Associates, were found guilty of acting as a non-licensed contractor and assessed with a fine of $4,552.

Though the Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office case is based on the findings in the DBPR investigation, it is a separate action.

Since Adler’s arrest in February, there have been nine court dates related to the case, though four of them were canceled. The Aug. 18 case is listed as a “hearing on a motion.”

Though it is unclear what motion is set to go before the court, Adler’s attorney, Shawn R. Carmical, has filed a motion asking the case be dismissed as the statute of limitations has expired.

Per Carmical’s motion, the DBPR complaint covered activity that allegedly occurred between August 2016 and May 2017, and the crime Adler is accused of has a statute of limitations of two years.

As the state didn’t file information on the charge until March 2020, the motion argues it missed the window for prosecution — the deadline was May 2019 based on the interpretation in Carmical’s motion.

Adler is one of two Republicans running in CD 5, the seat currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson. He faces Roger Wagoner in the Republican primary.