Weekly Roundup: Where's the love?

By DARA KAM
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, August 26, 2016.......... Floridians may be excused for avoiding their mailboxes, refusing to answer knocks on their doors and turning off their televisions.
 
It's what's known in Capitol circles as "the silly season," and the mud is at an all-time high.
 
Accusations of bribery and links to terrorist groups and arguments about the rap sheets of candidates' dads are part of the campaign slime leading up to Tuesday's primary elections, which can't come soon enough for some.
 
Thank goodness for the Florida Supreme Court for providing a salacious respite from business-as-usual on the election trail. The justices permanently disbarred two lawyers affiliated with a bizarre case involving a Tampa radio personality known as "Bubba the Love Sponge."
 
Trustees of a Florida university also offered a diversion from the antics leading up to Tuesday's primary elections, but what happens now at the school is about as clear as, well, mud.
 
Inboxes are bursting with last-minute appeals from candidates and strategists who could not be blamed for relying on the wisdom of Sun Tzu, whose "The Art of War" is considered a handbook for many in the hand-to-hand combat of politics.
 
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity,” the centuries-old advice reads.

NO LOVE LOST

From Miami to Pensacola, political campaigns and shadowy committees are doing their final bits of dirty work before the primaries.

In an already-contentious state Senate primary in Palm Beach County, the acrimony reached a new level after two Democratic contenders dragged in paternal rap sheets.

State Rep. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, and personal-injury attorney Michael Steinger of Palm Beach Gardens had already exchanged volleys about alleged vote-by-mail ballot shenanigans and ties to special interests.

But Steinger, who has put $490,000 of his own money into the Senate race, ran a television ad that included a mug shot of Powell's father.

Powell's father, a previously convicted felon, was arrested in July for aggravated assault. He was alleged to have hit a woman in the head and fired a gun in a Riviera Beach home the Powells have shared.

Steinger said the intent wasn't to make the senior Powell an issue, but to highlight that Bobby Powell talks of supporting gun control yet he allowed a firearm to have been "illegally" kept in his home.

"It seems to go against everything he says," said Steinger, who added he was simply responding to prior negative ads from Powell.

Powell lashed back Monday against the TV spot through an email, which also served as a fundraising message, saying, "This race isn't about our parents --- which is why I've never talked about his father --- this race is about Michael Steinger and me."

But that didn't stop Powell from visiting the sins of Steinger's father.

"If my father were currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted of running a $1.25 Billion Ponzi scheme (as Mr. Steinger's father Joel is), I don't think I would bring family into things," Powell said in the email.

Further south, a contentious Senate battle between three Democrats has included accusations of bribery, links to a terrorist group and election hijinks. The fight has roped in state prosecutors and local police as three Democratic primary contenders vie in the newly redrawn Senate District 40.

Incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard is being challenged by Andrew Korge, who doesn't live in the district but says he grew up in it, and Ana Rivas Logan, a Republican-turned-Democrat who served a single term in the state House.

Korge and supporters have recently focused on a trip Bullard took to the Middle East with members of the Dream Defenders, a group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization.

Bullard's tour guide was affiliated with the anti-Israel BDS movement, a pro-Palestinian group linked with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, something Bullard said he was unaware of until news reports raised questions after he returned from the May trip.

"It's just disturbing," Korge said in an interview outside the West Miami Dade Regional Library recently. "This raises a lot of questions. … It's concerning that an American elected official should be meeting with members of a terrorist organization."

Bullard said he is "agnostic" about Palestinians and Israel, a hot-button issue in a district with many Jewish voters.

"I am not supporting a terrorist organization nor have I ever nor am I leaning to it," Bullard said in a telephone interview this week. "The reason I went was because I had never been to the region and had been hearing all kinds of issues and concerns related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as to the conditions under which the Palestinians were living."

Rivas Logan, the only Hispanic seeking the nomination, suspended her campaign a month ago but has re-emerged on the scene in the final days before the Aug. 30 primary.

"People are using whatever they can to get elected, and running at all costs is not victory," she said.

NOT MUCH LOVE FOR LOVE SPONGE LAWYERS

In a rare move, the Florida Supreme Court permanently disbarred two lawyers for their roles in setting up the drunken-driving arrest of an opposing attorney in a high-profile case involving radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Describing the misconduct as "essentially unprecedented," the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously supported the disbarment of Robert D. Adams and Adam Robert Filthaut, who were with the Tampa firm Adams & Diaco, P.A. in January 2013 when the bizarre series of events occurred.

At that time, Adams & Diaco was defending Clem in a defamation lawsuit filed by another radio personality, Todd Schnitt. Adams, Filthaut and a third member of the firm, Stephen Christopher Diaco, took part in a scheme to set up a DUI arrest of one of Schnitt's lawyers, Phillip Campbell, according to the Supreme Court.

Diaco agreed earlier to disbarment, according to the ruling.

The set-up took place on Jan. 23, 2013, as the civil lawsuit involving the radio personalities was in recess for the night. Campbell and his co-counsel in the case had walked to Malio's Steakhouse in Tampa for dinner and drinks and were spotted by a paralegal who worked for Adams & Diaco.

The paralegal, Melissa Personius, contacted Adams about Campbell being in the restaurant and ultimately had drinks with Campbell at the bar without telling him that she worked for Adams & Diaco, the Supreme Court ruling said. Filthaut, meanwhile, called a friend, then-Tampa police Sgt. Raymond Fernandez and told him Campbell was drinking at Malio's and might drive while intoxicated.

Later in the evening, Campbell --- who planned to walk to his nearby home --- offered to call a cab for Personius. Personius refused to leave her car overnight in valet parking and insisted it be moved to a secure parking lot, the ruling said. Campbell agreed to move the car to a lot near his apartment building, was pulled over by Fernandez and subsequently charged with DUI. Campbell's bag containing trial information was left in Personius' car.

FAMU PREZ DOESN'T FEEL THE LOVE

The future of embattled Florida A&M University President Elmira Mangum remained in limbo after the school's board of trustees this week narrowly rejected a one-year extension of her contract.

Following a trustees' decision in June to take no action on Mangum's three-year contract, which is scheduled to expire April 1, the board renewed its debate Wednesday after an annual evaluation that was critical of her leadership.

A solid majority of the 13-member board found the president did not meet expectations on four of the 11 goals, including her relationship with trustees.

Mangum, who was appointed in 2014, said there was a "lack of clarity" on many of the evaluation goals, which included items like "organizational management."

"What does success look like and how do the members of the board define it?" Mangum asked, adding she had expected more discussion between herself and the evaluators before the report was finalized.

But Mangum's comments drew a strong rebuttal from a number of trustees, who noted the evaluation goals were very similar to last year's evaluation and the process has been underway for months.

Matthew Carter, a trustee and former member of state Public Service Commission, said if Mangum had issues with the evaluation process, they should have been raised much earlier. "I'm just kind of in shock really," he said.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Florida health officials reported the state's first locally transmitted case of the mosquito-borne Zika virus outside of Miami-Dade County, announcing Tuesday that a case had been found in Pinellas County. The state later said another locally transmitted case was found in Palm Beach County.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The misconduct giving rise to the disciplinary actions against these three attorneys is among the most shocking, unethical, and unprofessional as has ever been brought before this (Supreme) Court." --- The Florida Supreme Court in a ruling permanently disbarring two lawyers involved in a high-profile case involving "Bubba the Love Sponge," a Tampa radio personality.