Ex-sen. Frank Artiles’ home is invaded in the investigation of a secret candidate

PALMETTO BAY, Florida. – A search warrant was executed on Wednesday morning at the home of former Florida Senator Frank Artiles as part of the Miami-Dade prosecutor’s investigation to see if he illegally funded a candidate planted in the November election.

Sources say the warrant involves searching for his electronic devices, including his cell phone and computer, and the contents of a safe at Artiles’ home in Palmetto Bay.

Investigators are looking for evidence of Artiles’s possible communication with Alex Rodriguez, a suspect candidate in the Florida District 37 Senate race, and whether there is evidence that Artiles paid illegally and paid the false candidate.

News of the attack, first reported by Local 10 News, dropped like a bomb in Tallahassee.

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Rodriguez, a third-party candidate in that race, has the same surname as Democratic incumbent José Javier Rodriguez, who narrowly lost to Republican challenger Ileana Garcia.

An investigation of Local 10 News shortly after the election found that Alex Rodriguez, an indebted machine representative in Boca Raton, falsified his address on his campaign form and that he did not raise funds or campaign for the position he was voting for. . He also lied to Local 10 News in November, when we asked him to explain his curious no-show and party campaign and suspicious campaign funding records.

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Designing a fake candidate is not illegal, but funding one is.

Prosecutors have been working on the case for months, tracking money and communications between Artiles and Alex Rodriguez.

They may have been destroyed by their digital footprints. Rodriguez was keeping his apparent handler, Artiles, informed of his progress as a candidate.

And sudden changes in his list of campaign donors date back to Artiles’ residential IP address.