Frank Artiles gets 60 days in jail, probation for orchestrating ‘ghost candidate’ scheme. His attorneys plan to appeal

Guilty, guilty, guilty.

As punishment for a so-called “ghost candidate” scheme he helped orchestrate during the 2020 election cycle, former Sen. Frank Artiles has been sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for time served, 500 hours of community service and 15 years of probation, five for each of three felony counts for which he was found guilty.

Judge Miguel de la O agreed Monday to stay Artiles’ sentencing, pending an appeal his attorneys said they’ll soon file. They have until Dec. 18 to do so.

Before handing down his judgment, de la O said he considered several factors the defense raised, including Artiles’ public and military service, lack of prior legal issues and charity work about which the Judge received numerous letters. De la O noted that probation was appropriate for a first-time nonviolent offender like Artiles.

He also admonished the defendant for taking advantage of Florida’s porous election statutes for partisan and financial gain by running a “ghost candidate” — someone with a near-zero chance of winning a race who runs to harm another contender’s chances.

“Our politics are poisoned. We have become tribal. I think our tribal, poisoned politics got the better of you, Mr. Artiles, and you lost sight of right and wrong,” the Judge said. “And I’m sure the money was nice, but I suspect that the rush of beating the other side was also a motivation.”

Artiles declined to advocate for himself before sentencing. His attorneys sought leniency, asking for only probation rather than a three-year prison sentence prosecutors sought.

They also pointed to the case of former Miami Beach Democratic Rep. Mike Grieco, who pleaded no contest in October 2017 to a misdemeanor charge of accepting $25,000 in foreign contributions through a political committee he was surreptitiously running. Grieco received a year’s probation, during which he couldn’t run from office.

That punishment is appropriate for Artiles too, his lawyer said, but wasn’t provided by Democratic State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s Office because Artiles is a Republican.

“We never got an offer (to plead out),” attorney Frank Quintero Jr. said. “We were basically forced to go to trial. So, similar cases, different approaches by the State Attorney’s Office. And I do believe it was because Michael Grieco was a Democrat? Absolutely. If he’d been a Republican there’s no way in the world they would have done that.”

Jurors agreed with prosecutors in late September that Artiles, a 51-year-old former Senator, unlawfully tampered with election proceedings, finding him guilty of three of four counts that each carried a maximum five-year prison sentence.

Fernandez Rundle’s Office accused Artiles of recruiting and paying nearly $48,000 to machine parts salesman Alex Rodriguez to run as a third-party candidate ahead of the 2020 election.

The goal: to siphon enough votes from similarly named incumbent Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez and deliver the Senate District 37 seat in Miami-Dade County to Republican Ileana Garcia, a former radio host and founder of Latinas for Trump.

Alex Rodriguez took more than 6,000 votes. Garcia won by 32 votes. She has denied any knowledge or involvement in the scheme and won re-election in 2022 by 18 percentage points. José Javier Rodríguez was confirmed in March as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Artiles and Alex Rodriguez were arrested in 2021. Rodriguez, who lived in Palm Beach County and never campaigned for the seat he signed up to run for, took a plea deal that August, receiving 36 months of probation in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors in the case against Artiles.

In his defense, Artiles’ attorneys argued that while their client did give money to Rodriguez, it was for Rodriguez’s daughter’s school tuition and for a lawyer, not to run for office. They conceded that Artiles did advise Rodriguez to change his party affiliation.

After multiple delays the jury found Artiles guilty Sept. 30 of making excessive campaign contributions, conspiring to make excessive campaign contributions and procuring a falsified candidate oath form. The jury found him not guilty of procuring a falsified voter registration form.

Each is a third-degree felony punishable by an up to five-year prison sentence and $5,000 in fines.

Lead prosecutor Tim VanderGiesen convinced jurors that Artiles had orchestrated the complex scheme with Gainesville-based Republican political consulting firm Data Targeting, whose principal, Patrick Bainter, paid Artiles $90,000.

“They won. They were successful,” VanderGiesen said during closing arguments. “They stole an election.”

Rundle said in a statement shortly after jurors handed down their verdict that it was clear the jury understood that Artiles “was not only the mastermind of the ‘ghost candidate’ scandal but violated Florida’s campaign finance and election laws in order to do it.”

Florida law does not prohibit people from running for an office for the sole purpose of taking votes from a similarly named candidate. But it is illegal for people to directly contribute more than $1,000 to a candidate.

“These third-degree felony convictions show that the jurors agreed that we cannot tolerate the violation of our laws just to gain political advantage,” Fernandez Rundle said.

Artiles, a Cuban American who previously served three House terms, was pushed into resigning from the Senate in 2017 after using a racial slur and other belittling language against Black lawmakers.

After his resignation, the Miami Herald revealed that Artiles’ PAC, Veterans for Conservative Principles, had paid former models from Hooters and Playboy $2,000 and $1,500, respectively, for “consulting” services.