Former Florida state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, the Democratic incumbent. The Tributary uncovers the missing stories in Jacksonville and across Florida. Subscribe to stay informed. They were successful. The six-member jury deliberated for seven hours before reaching its verdict. Artiles was acquitted on a fourth count of aiding and abetting a false voter registration. Artiles sat stone-faced as the guilty verdicts were read. Artiles, who faced up to five years in prison per count, sat quietly throughout the two-week trial.
Behind him in the Miami courtroom was a revolving cast of friends and family. The charges stem from efforts to achieve a Republican supermajority in the Florida Senate by running three ghost candidates to take votes away from Democratic candidates in key races. On Sept. Those priorities included escaping liability for damages related to power outages in the wake of Hurricane Irma; ousting J.
The defeat of Sen. He was defeated by 32 votes by Ileana Garcia, founder of Latinas for Trump. Prosecutors said consultants implicated in the scandal had withheld records that had been subpoenaed.
Key evidence in the form of hundreds of text messages between Artiles and Rodriguez also went missing, they said. To buttress his credibility, prosecutors laid out the broader effort to influence the election. Their first witness was a reticent Pat Bainter, a north Florida peanut farmer and powerful operative for the state Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. Testimony and evidence presented at trial revealed that Bainter held meetings with Artiles and Garcia campaign consultants who had a business relationship with Pitts, then-CEO of Matrix.
Rodriguez took the stand late on the fourth day of the trial. Prosecutor VanderGiesen showed him totals from the race, in which he got 6, votes. His reason for all the scams?
