Palm Beach State Attorney candidate took $100K from donor that violated Cuba embargo

Image via Sam Stern campaign.

Sam Stern, the Republican candidate for Palm Beach County State Attorney, recently asserted that unlike his Democratic opponent, he had “not accepted contributions from convicted criminals.”

Not true.

Stern accepted $100,000 in September from a company whose principals were found guilty on multiple charges of violating the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 (TWEA).

The “enemy” they illegally did business with? Cuba.

Stern threw shade in a statement to the Palm Beach Post last week at Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Alexcia Cox, a Democrat running for State Attorney, for taking a $1,000 donation from Broward Sheriff’s Advisory Council Vice Chair Lewis Stahl.

Stahl was sentenced in 2019 to 30 months in prison, fined $75,000 and ordered to pay $6 million in restitution after being convicted of tax evasion in 2019. He’s made many political contributions this cycle, including to U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Gov. Ron DeSantis-appointed Palm Beach Commissioner Michael Barnett ­­— all Republicans — and to Democratic Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.

Division of Elections show the $1,000 donation Cox received from Stahl last year is tied for the second smallest state-level donation he’s given this cycle, second only to the since-aborted Orange and Osceola State Attorney campaign of Republican Seth Hyman.

But a big contributor to Stern, who has raised and spent more than $1.4 million for the State Attorney’s race, was Philadelphia-based chemicals manufacturer Wynnefield Brothers International. Stern’s political committee, Stern PC, reported receiving $100,000 on Sept. 9 from the company, which registered with the Florida Division of Corporations in 2022.

Wynnefield Brothers principals Don and Stefan Brodie are the former owners and operators of a biotech applications and manufacturing company called Bro-Tech, which does business as Purolite. In 2021, the same year the Brodies sold Purolite to the Ecolab Company, Stefan Brodie announced on Purolite’s website that it was embroiled in a dispute with its accountants because they had not filed tax returns on the company’s behalf between 2010 and 2017.

That ironic tax-related tidbit isn’t the most interesting detail about the Brodie brothers and their company. This is: In 2002, a federal jury convicted Bro-Tech and the Brodies for violating a TWEA embargo on Cuba to sell water purification resins to the island nation.

Bro-Tech was convicted of 45 counts of violating the TWEA. Don Brodie was convicted on 34 counts, including “causing” and “approving” illegal sales of water purification resins to Cuba. And Stefan Brodie was convicted of one count of conspiracy to violate the TWEA.

After the trial Judge granted the defendants a new trial because he determined that the language prosecutors used prejudiced the jury, Don Brodie pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment and was sentenced to a year’s probation and a $10,000 fine. Bro-Tech did similarly and was fined $250,000.

The U.S. government appealed the Judge’s decision to grant Stefan Brodie’s motion for judgment of acquittal. After reviewing the case, the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his conviction.

In their written opinion, Judges Theodore McKee, Michael Fisher and Edward Becker wrote that “a reasonable jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that (Stefan Brodie) had actual knowledge of the law violated, the facts constituting the offense and the illicit purpose of the conspiracy.”

They added that evidence in the trial showed Brodie exhibited “willful blindness” and painted “a convincing picture of (him) as a company president who deliberately stuck his head in the sand” about the prohibited transactions.

Stern did not immediately respond to questions about whether he was aware of the TWEA violations, Stefan Brodie’s conviction, Don Brodie’s guilty plea and if he plans to return their $100,000 contribution. Florida Politics will update this report if he does.

Federal and state records show Stefan Brodie, a Miami Beach resident, gave $1.25 million to the Never Back Down PAC that backed DeSantis’ short-lived presidential campaign, $1 million to DeSantis’ Empower Parents PC political committee, $844,600 to a joint fundraising committee supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, $20,000 to the Republican Party of Florida, $6,600 to Trump directly, and $5,000 to Trump’s Save America PAC.

Don Brodie gave $844,600 to the Trump joint fundraising committee, $10,000 to the Republican Party of Florida, $6,510 to Trump and $5,000 to Save America PAC.

A former federal and Palm Beach County prosecutor, Stern is competing with Cox and no-party lawyer Adam Farkas to succeed Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who is departing after 12 years in office.

The winner Nov. 5 will earn a salary of $219,000 and command an office of 115 prosecutors and 180 support personnel tasked with delivering justice in Florida’s fourth-most populous county.