The 2017 City Council election in picturesque Venice, Florida, turned ugly quickly after accusations of foul play were made against a mysterious political committee by an incumbent fighting for her seat.

After being slammed by a vicious political flyer mailed to residents in Venice and surrounding areas, Councilwoman Deborah Anderson filed a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission.

She followed that complaint with a lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court for Sarasota County.

It took more than a year for the FEC to hear the case and issue a Consent Final Order against Ann Stone, the treasurer of “Protect Venice,” a political committee with a UPS Store mailbox as a mailing address, and which was formed a little over a month before the city election by a woman who lives in Newberry … 200 miles from Venice.

In its final order, the Florida Elections Commission found that Ann Stone violated numerous provisions of Florida Statute 106.011(10)(b), and fined her a total of $4,000.00.

The complaint alleged that four flyers were mailed out from Ann Stone’s PAC in October, 2017 within days of each other, using untraceable first class stamps instead of a trackable bulk mailing permit, which is typical of campaign advertising.

According to its Campaign Finance reporting, Protect Venice had zero money in its account until the following month when Ann Stone donated $100.00 to her cause.

In fact, Ann Stone didn’t even register her PAC until October 23, 2017, after two of the flyers had already been mailed.

Furthermore, the PAC didn’t receive any contributions until three months after the election when, on February 6, 2018 it received a donation from another political committee located in Tallahassee called “Social Justice.”

This PAC, which had been in existence since October 11, 2016, was funded with $99,330 from four other Tallahassee-based PACs, $5,000 from a Venice PAC, and a $10,000 donation from Dead Bob’s Kitchen & Kocktails located in St. Petersburg, Florida.

According to the Campaign Finance reports filed for Project Venice, Ann Stone received $35,000 from Social Justice on February 6, 2018, and paid the sum of $32,112 on February 7, 2018 to Political Ink, Inc. for the campaign flyers she had mailed out four months earlier.

The FEC found, among other violations, that she “publicly disseminated electioneering communications when Protect Venice did not have sufficient funds on deposit in its campaign depository to pay for the electioneering communications.”

As you might expect, the five political committees donating to Social Justice were themselves funded by dozens of other PACs from around the state.

And, as you might expect, it would literally take days to track the “dark money” that funded all committees that in turn funded Social Justice, a task we are not about to undertake, and one which would be probably futile.

Deborah Anderson, however, told VotersOpinion that she traced the source of the money to philanthropist and former Florida legislator Pat Neal, president of Neal Land Ventures, LLC, a deep-pocketed Sarasota developer.  She claims he conspired to oust her from office because she voted against all the projects he brought before the commission.

In the end, however, Protect Venice treasurer Ann Stone violated Florida campaign finance reporting laws and got nailed, as reported by the Venice Gondolier on December 5, 2018.

Unfortunately, she broke no laws by funding her political committee with “dark money.”

During the 2018 North Miami Beach municipal election, commission candidate David Templer asked VotersOpinion if we were “okay” with “dark money PACs” sending out the vile campaign flyers that had been flooding voters’ mailboxes.

No, we are not “okay” with it.  But there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.  It’s all perfectly legal.

In her lawsuit against Ann Stone, Deborah Anderson alleged eight counts of wrongdoing, including criminal conspiracy, civil conspiracy, defamation, libel, negligence, and Florida campaign finance law violations.

Earlier this month, Judicial Circuit Judge Kimberly Bonner ruled on Ann Stone’s Motion to Dismiss by issuing an Order Dismissing Counts 3-6, all of which related to Anderson’s allegations of defamation and libel, allowing the counts relating to conspiracy and campaign law violations to stand.

According to the Herald Tribune, “Bonner dismissed the counts without prejudice, partly because Anderson never cited specific facts to refute allegations made in mailers that were sent out as part of the Nov. 2017 campaign for Venice City Council Seat 1.”  As such, Deborah Anderson will be filing a second amended complaint.

Deborah Anderson told VotersOpinion, “I think the defendant’s motion to dismiss is an attempt to delay and harass.  I will not go away.  I plan on getting emails and phone records to prove who was involved and how they operate.  I will add anyone who took part in this to my lawsuit as a defendant.  I hope to get to the people that finance these ridiculous mailers.  The bottom line is that the basis of illegal campaign mailers is a conspiracy to break campaign finance law. That is why I view the criminal conspiracy as key.”

The Herald Tribune also noted, “Bonner, a former Sarasota County Court Judge, was appointed to the 12th Judicial Circuit by Gov. Rick Scott in July 2013, and elected to a six-year term without opposition in 2014.”

Cheryl Cook, the local blogger for the Venice area, told VotersOpinion that Judge Bonner’s immediate family, the Carltons, are old-money, long-time denizens of Venice, who donated over 24,000 acres of land to Sarasota County for a nature preserve called the T. Mabry Carlton Reserve.  The judge was appointed by Governor Rick Scott in 2013, and her sister, Lisa Carlton, is a former Republican State Senator for the Sarasota County area.

Ms. Cook has also filled us in on some of the political corruption rampant in Sarasota County, including the cities of Venice and North Port, as well as the local school board.  Like this blogger, Cheryl literally loses sleep researching, investigating and reporting on all the dirty dealings going on.

Including the plague of “dark money” PACs used to unduly influence local elections.

In the meantime, Deborah Anderson is forging ahead with her lawsuit because, in her opinion, fighting this scourge is the right thing to do.

“Stephanie’s blog was crucial.  During my motion to dismiss hearing, I pointed to the recent injunction in South Florida and the other similar defamation suit as proof that my lawsuit was not unusual,” Ms. Anderson told VotersOpinion.

“I also was encouraged that people were getting fed up with these campaign shenanigans and fighting back.  I would not have known where to even begin without Stephanie’s blog.  It gave me hope and I felt I was not alone.”

Deborah, we know exactly how you feel.

Trust us, you are not alone.

Stephanie