University submitted form allegedly forged by Carolina Amesty to state in pursuit of accreditation

Windemere Republican Rep. Carolina Amesty, 29, is seeking her second two-year term serving House District 45. Image via Florida House.

In an attempt to attain certification, Central Christian University submitted a document allegedly forged by Rep. Carolina Amesty.

On Wednesday, prosecutors released a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigative summary to the media, the same day a pretrial hearing was initially scheduled for Amesty, the sitting Representative who faces four felony charges.

That hearing has been rescheduled to Nov. 18, after the Nov. 5 General Election, in which Amesty, a Windermere Republican, faces a challenge from Democrat Leonard Spencer. A judge has scheduled additional hearings in January and, for now, canceled a trial originally scheduled for Oct. 28.

The evidence released by prosecutors in Florida’s 9th Judicial Circuit includes several witnesses offering different accounts of a Sept. 15, 2021, meeting between Amesty, an administrator for Central Christian University, and Dr. Robert Shaffer, then the principal of Central Christian Academy. Shaffer started his job a month before that meeting, where he said he filled out an administrative personnel form but never signed it.

According to Shaffer, he filled out the form believing it involved his employment at the Academy, a K-12 private religious school. At the time, he only wrote “Central Christian” on forms. But at some point, the form had “Central Christian University” printed on it, and a signature was notarized by Amesty, a public notary at the time.

“Shaffer believed the form he filled out was a requisite of the State to teach at a private school,” the report notes. “Shaffer filled the form out at this office at CCA. Amesty did not tell Shaffer the form was needed for CCU to obtain licensure through the state.”

But the form would later be included in files submitted to the state’s Commission for Independent Education. Those filed listed Shaffer as an employee of the university, even though Shaffer had only ever worked at the Academy, and he said he lacked the education credentials for a higher education institution.

FDLE investigators spoke to Tiffany Hurst, the Commission’s executive director, who confirmed the state received the form. However, she noted that as a religious institution, the university did not need a license from the state to operate in Florida.

Hurst told investigators that expanding the school’s curriculum to include business, hospitality, and psychology classes would require state licensing and oversight. She also said state accreditation would allow students to obtain government financial aid to attend the school.

Investigators said two years of catalogs submitted to the state included instructors who the university had never employed. That fact alone would not have resulted in the state denying an application, as the listed instructors were considered “potential candidates,” the school would be given a certain amount of time to hire personnel to meet state requirements after a license was issued.

But Shaffer said he did not know when Amesty asked him to fill out forms that they involved the university. The papers were presented to him less than a month after he started as academy principal. He told investigators he was certain he had no knowledge of the purpose of the forms and listed two reasons: that a new position would have involved an increase in pay that was never discussed and that he wasn’t qualified to teach classes in English or Psychology as the forms suggested.

The investigation report includes a handwriting analysis saying it was most likely Amesty signed Shaffer’s name to forms, hand-printing the name instead of cursive, and wrote “University” on the line where Shaffer had written “Central Christian.” That was based on an analysis of handwriting for Shaffer and Amesty. However, the expert stressed the finding was inconclusive “due to the inability to examine the original questioned document.”

Investigators’ interviews also showed that Amesty had spoken multiple times with the school’s consultants during the licensing process and knew staffing would play a role in obtaining accreditation with the state.

Shaffer and a woman living at his home also described Amesty and her fiancee, Jay Rosario, coming to the educator’s home in July 2024.

“Amesty tried to convince Shaffer that the signature on the notarized form was his,” the report states. Shaffer said Amesty brought payroll checks to show his signature, but he maintained he never signed the forms in question.

Coincidentally, the two showed up when Dr. Samuel Torres, who succeeded Shaffer as principal at the Academy, visited there. Torres told investigators he did not know Amesty would arrive the same day. He and another school employee both told accounts of Shaffer demonstrating poor memory at the school, sometimes forgetting meetings. But Torres said he didn’t believe Shaffer suffered from dementia and said his “mentor” was “not losing it, but he was changing.”

Torres also said Amesty had asked him to provide an affidavit when she sued the Orlando Sentinel over reporting on Shaffer’s allegations. She has since dropped that lawsuit.

Notably, the alleged forgery and misuse of notary public powers occurred before Amesty’s 2022 Election to the Florida House, and she no longer has any professional affiliation with Central Christian University or Academy, which her father, Juan Amesty, founded.