Oud-Sen. Frank Artiles’ house raided in an investigation into the candidate

PALMETTOBAAI, Fla. A warrant was issued Wednesday morning at the home of former Senator Frank Artiles in Florida as part of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office’s investigation into whether he illegally funded a planted candidate in the November election.

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

Investigators are looking for evidence of Artiles’ possible communication with Alex Rodriguez, a shield candidate in the Senate race in Florida 37, and whether there was evidence that Artiles paid and paid the mock candidate illegally.

The news of the raid, first reported by Local 10 News, fell like a bomb in Tallahassee.

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Rodriguez, a third-party candidate in the race, has the same surname as Democratic President Jose Javier Rodriguez, who lost nail-bitingly to Republican challenger Ileana Garcia.

A local 10 News investigation revealed shortly after the election that Alex Rodriguez, a deep-in-debt machinery representative in Boca Raton, falsified his address on his campaign submission form and that he had no fundraising or campaign for financed the position he was in. the mood for. He also lied to Local 10 News in November when we asked him to discuss his curious campaign funding, no party and campaign funding.

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Determining a mock candidate is not illegal, but funding it.

Prosecutors have been working on the case for months following the money and communication between Artiles and Alex Rodriguez.

This was possibly done through their digital footprints. Rodriguez keeps his apparent handler Artiles informed of his progress as a candidate.

And sudden changes to his campaign’s donor list can be traced back to Artiles’ IP address.

Artiles, now a lobbyist, resigned his state Senate seat in 2017 after using a racial interruption among colleagues and amid reports that a former Hooters calendar girl and a Playboy model with no political experience had been appointed as ‘consultants’ is.

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The raid on Artiles’ house was stopped before noon and the former state senator was spotted in the house with his lawyer.

None of them commented on Wednesday.

Garcia won the district 37 race with just 32 votes over Jose Javier Rodriguez. Shill candidate Alex Rodriguez received more than 6,000 votes.

There is no evidence to suggest that Garcia was involved or that he had knowledge of the soul planted in the race.