A series of complaints lodged with the Florida Elections Commission allege they violated election laws in 2017.

A series of complaints lodged with the Florida Elections Commission alleges that the Republican Party of Sarasota County, former Sarasota City Commission candidate Martin Hyde and two political committees associated with Sarasota County School Board Member Eric Robinson violated election laws in 2017.

Hyde said he is “not going to try and defend” what he did and has offered to settle the complaint against him and pay a fine. He said he was “unaware it was a breach of the rules” and blames Sarasota GOP Vice Chairman Jack Brill for giving him bad advice.

Brill and Robinson declined to comment because the cases are ongoing.

City elections are nonpartisan and candidates are prohibited from advertising their party affiliations.

The complaints allege that Hyde, the Sarasota GOP and the committees chaired by Robinson schemed to get around the prohibition on partisan campaigning by moving money from Hyde to a political committee and ultimately to the party, which paid for a mailer saying the party backed Hyde in the March 14 election.

"This is an unusual case in that it peels back the curtain and very clearly shows how the money’s being manipulated,” said Ron Meyer, the Tallahassee attorney representing Michael Belval, a Sarasota resident who filed the complaint.

Meyer said it is no secret that political committees often are used to move money around and “obfuscate what is the overarching purpose of the election code, and that is to show who gave it and who got it.” But such accusations can be hard to prove. The difference in this case is that Hyde openly discussed the arrangement during a radio interview.

“We know it goes on,” Meyer said. “It doesn’t usually get detected because it is something that’s covert and rarely do the participants in these kinds of transactions come forward and acknowledge what they’re doing.”

Hyde gave $4,000 to the Making a Better Tomorrow political action committee on Feb. 13, 2017. That same day the Legal Reform Now Committee gave $4,000 to the Republican Party of Sarasota County.

Robinson is the chairman and treasurer of Making a Better Tomorrow and also served in those roles for Legal Reform Now before that organization shut down last year. He also is the Sarasota GOP’s accountant and past chair.

On March 22, 2017, the Sarasota GOP gave Andrick & Associates in Sarasota two checks totaling $4,302.26 for “mailers,” according to campaign finance reports.

“Hyde’s funneling of money through other political organizations to the Republican Party of Sarasota County so that it would produce a partisan mailer, constitutes a direct violation” of state law, according to the complaint.

The complaint also notes that the scheme was “confirmed by Hyde himself” during an interview with radio host Cathy Antunes, who asked Hyde why he contributed the $4,000 to Making a Better Tomorrow.

“That $4,000 went to a mailer that was sent from the GOP supporting me,” Hyde said during the interview, which was conducted during the campaign and is posted on YouTube.

Antunes then asked Hyde why he didn’t use his own campaign account to pay for the mailer.

“It’s a nonpartisan race,” Hyde said. “As it relates to coming from my campaign, my campaign can’t directly send something out notifying ... me as a Republican, so it was suggested that Republican Party didn’t have the resources to fund a city mailer so I sent the money to a PAC and it came from there, simple as that.”

“It was a mechanism to get money to the GOP,” Hyde added.

Coordinating on partisan ads

Citing a 2003 advisory opinion, the complaint says state law prohibits candidates from trying to get around the prohibition on partisan campaigning by coordinating with other groups to do partisan ads.

“Political advertisements done by others in consultation with a candidate must meet the nonpartisan requirement,” the complaint states.

Additionally, the Sarasota GOP violated a state law that prohibits political parties from accepting contributions that are earmarked “for the partial or exclusive use of a particular candidate,” according to the complaint.

The political committees controlled by Robinson also are accused of multiple legal violations.

In an interview with the Herald-Tribune, Hyde said he didn’t intend to break the law but made the mistake of “taking advice from people who I thought would know what they were doing because they’ve been involved in American campaigns for a long time now.”

“I was a babe in the woods,” Hyde added, pointing to the fact that he admitted what he did to Antunes as evidence he didn’t know it was unlawful.

“I didn’t do much of a job of covering up,” Hyde said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to cover up.”

Hyde blamed Brill for the legal entanglement, saying Brill “should have known better, there’s no question.” Hyde said Brill came up with the idea of the Sarasota GOP sending out the mailer and asked Hyde to pay for it.

“I suggested sending the check to the Republican Party,” Hyde said. “He told me to send it to the PAC. He gave me an address to send it to.”

Critics of Robinson have called him the “prince of dark money” and say he has become an expert at shifting political contributions around to hide the true source of funding for attack ads and other political communications.

“Looking back it looks like somebody trying to filter, launder, clean money,” Hyde said. “I’ve never had to do that ... I don’t think it’s a good idea, I don’t think it’s appropriate and if I had my druthers and my time back I wouldn’t do it. I literally didn’t give it a second thought. I just assumed it was well within the bounds of normal practice given that it was the vice chairman of the party telling me to do it.”

Meyer said he views the entire scheme as “a serious transgression.”

“It really goes against what the law is intended to ensure,” he said. “And that is transparency so that anybody can see who’s giving the money and who’s getting the money in political races.”

Meyer said the four cases tentatively are scheduled to go before the Florida Elections Commission in August. Hyde also said he was told his case will be heard in August.

An investigator for the commission has completed his inquiry into the complaints, copies of which were obtained by the Herald-Tribune. The next step is for the commission’s general counsel to present the cases at a hearing, either with recommendations for settlements or that probable cause exists of election law violations, Meyer said.

If any of the cases are not settled and there is a recommendation that probable cause of a violation exists, the commission would vote on whether to accept the recommendation and refer the case for a hearing in front of the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, Meyer said.

The only penalty that the FEC can impose is fines, Meyer said.

“I’ll pay whatever it costs and accept my punishment and sanction, whatever it is,” Hyde said, adding: “It was an expensive mistake but not ruinous.”