Congressional Candidate/Whistleblower Clint Curtis Says Primary Opponent Suzanne Kosmas Staffers Made Illegal, Deceptive Campaign Calls from Dem Party Offices, Phone Lines

Precinct Captain Email Says Kosmas Staffers Claimed to be from FDP, Deceptive Scheme Revealed by Caller ID...

Brad Friedman Byon 8/8/2008, 3:22pm PT

[UPDATED: Florida Democratic Party responds to this report. See bottom of article for details.]

A Democratic candidate running in a contested primary for the U.S. House seat representing Florida's 24th Congressional District has filed an official complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), alleging that his opponent has been making illegal and deceptive campaign calls from within the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) offices, on party phone lines.

In a statement sent to The BRAD BLOG blasting his opponent, Clint Curtis described the tactics being used by the Suzanne Kosmas campaign as "the worst example of Rovian dirty tricks."

Curtis, a Florida computer programmer turned well-known vote-rigging/anti-corruption whistleblower (see BRAD BLOG's years-long coverage of Curtis here) has filed a complaint charging that paid campaign staffers for his opponent in the August 26th Democratic Primary, former state Rep. Kosmas, "have been contacting Democratic primary election voters and fraudulently identifying themselves as calling on behalf of the Florida Democratic Party," according to the campaign's press release.

"The callers then go on to solicit votes for Kosmas in the Aug. 26 Democratic primary," the Curtis camp alleges.

The press release is posted in full at the end of this article, with a link to download the complete FEC complaint. Also at the end of the article is the full text of an email sent to Curtis and campaign manager Jerry Halberg, from a Curtis campaign staffer who also serves as a local Florida precinct captain. The precinct captain claims to have received one of the deceptive phone calls.

The email notes that the Caller ID recorded showed the call as having come from "KOSMAS FOR CONG" with the phone number 407-365-7808. A call made by The BRAD BLOG to that number this afternoon, was answered by someone identifying the number as belonging to "The Campaign for Florida of the Florida Democratic Party."

The Curtis campaign press release, issued yesterday, details the main points of Curtis' complaint to the FEC:

* Kosmas and her committee knowingly misled the democratic primary election voters as to the origination of her telephonic communications and utilized state Democratic Party offices and telephone equipment for her federal campaign. * The Kosmas campaign claimed the state offices, which are leased by the Florida State Democratic Party, as her campaign offices in public communications with Democratic voters. * She knowingly led the voters to believe that the communication asking for support in the primary was from the Florida Democratic Party when in fact it was from paid staffers.

"The unlawful calls continued even after the Kosmas campaign was notified of the problem," the release continues, with Curtis adding, "Her campaign was given the opportunity to rectify the violations prior to the submission of FEC charges but apparently chose not to."

The Curtis campaign says photos taken of the Democratic Party offices in Oviedo reveal how the evidence of FDP support for Kosmas was "scrubbed" after they complained. Photos said to have been taken on July 31, before Curtis complained to both the FDP and the Kosmas camp, show campaign signs for Kosmas plastered throughout the local Democratic Party facility. After the initial complaints on Aug 3rd, as the following photos purport to show, the signs were removed...

[UPDATE: Eric Jotkoff, Communications Director for the Florida Democratic Party, contacted us after hearing about this story. Though he didn't read it, and though Curtis has not accused the FDP of wrong-doing, Jotkoff denies any wrong-doing by the FDP and "strenuously object to all of the so-called information in this story." Details of our testy phone call with Jotkoff, and his responses to Curtis' allegations on behalf of the state party, are posted as an update at the bottom of this article.]

Curtis has criticized Kosmas as being a wealthy-millionaire, hand-selected by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), with similar ethics concerns to the presumptive Republican nominee, Rep. Tom Feeney. In additions to allegations of a Feeney's involvement in an electronic vote-rigging conspiracy, as Curtis testified under oath and on video before members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (on which Feeney now sits) in 2005, the not-yet-indicted Republican Congresman is currently under FBI investigation concerning his relationship with jailed GOP super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. For three years running now, Feeney has made it onto a list of "Most Corrupt" in Congress, as compiled by a D.C. ethics watchdog organization.

In a story first broken by The BRAD BLOG in late 2004, and covered here ever since, Curtis accused Feeney of asking him to create a vote-rigging software prototype when both men worked for an Oviedo, Florida software firm. At the time, Curtis was a fellow Republican, and Feeney worked as the company's registered lobbyist and general counsel, even as he served as the speaker of the Florida House. He was also Jeb Bush's former running mate for Governor in 1998.

Curtis has alleged Kosmas has ethical issues that will make it difficult to take Feeney on in the general election on those matters, and that the deceptive phone calls only make matters worse.

"If we can't trust her to honestly represent herself correctly on the telephone, can we trust her to represent the citizens of the district in Congress?," Curtis asks in the campaign release.

"The Democratic Party does not make endorsements in the primary. Our party is not a handful of elitists, but rather a party of the people. We determine our candidates in our primaries. What has occurred is just another case of a political millionaire acting as if she is above the law and has no problem in attempting to deceive voters," the release quotes Curtis as adding.

In an April BRAD BLOG interview with Curtis, he noted his displeasure with the DCCC's decision to back Kosmas, despite his having been a loyal Democrat who'd made an impressive run --- also with no DCCC support --- against the powerful Feeney back in 2006. The party, he charged, was not happy after he told them during an interview in Washington D.C. earlier this year, that, should be be elected, he'd place his constituents' desires ahead of requests to vote any particular way by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In a comment sent to The BRAD BLOG today he echoed that sentiment and charged that Kosmas was using a tactic worthy of Karl Rove in order to deceive voters.

"People really are fed up with the whole Pelosi/Democrat-In-Name-Only thing," said Curtis. "I personally have little tolerance for fake Democrats anymore, and Kosmas' playbook here is the worst example of Rovian dirty tricks."

"We need to reject this not just in FL-24 but across the board and oust these damn Neocon enablers once and for all," he added.

Calls made by The BRAD BLOG to both the Kosmas campaign office and her campaign manager Paul Dunne, requesting comment this afternoon, were not immediately returned.

The text of Curtis' complete 4-page complaint, as filed with the FEC, is available here [WORD].

Curtis' website is www.ClintCurtis.com.

Kosmas' is www.KosmasForCongress.com.

The Curtis press release follows in full, below the email from a precinct captain who explains what happened when the received a call from the Kosmas Campaign...

Subject: Misrepresented phone call

From: [Name/Email address redacted]

Date: Thu, July 31, 2008 6:13 pm

To: Clint Curtis [Email address redacted]

Cc: Jerry Halberg [Email address redacted] Misrepresented phone callThu, July 31, 2008 6:13 pmClint Curtis [Jerry Halberg [ Clint: On the afternoon of July 30, 2008, I received a phone call that went as follows: "Hello, this is" so and so "calling from the Florida Democratic Party." I said, "Oh great, I am one of your precinct captains." He replied, "Well I am calling to ask you to support Suzanne Kosmas for congress." I responded, "She is the last person I would support, I am supporting Clint Curtis and am on his campaign staff." He asked me why, and I proceeded to give him my list of reasons and ended the call. I immediately notified your campaign manager, Mr. Jerry Halberg of the situation. He asked me to provide the Caller ID information, which was as follows: KOSMAS FOR CONG 407-365-7808 12:07 PM 7/30 As per your request, I am eMailing you this information. [Name/Email address redacted]

TITUSVILLE - Democratic Congressional candidate Clint Curtis has filed federal election charges against the campaign of Suzanne Kosmas. Curtis' legal complaint alleges that Kosmas' campaign staffers have been contacting Democratic primary election voters and fraudulently identifying themselves as calling on behalf of the Florida Democratic Party. The callers then go on to solicit votes for Kosmas in the Aug. 26 Democratic primary. Curtis claims his primary opponent's recent actions are "intentional misrepresentation and perpetration of fraud." The official paperwork - signed, notarized and submitted in triplicate - was mailed to the Federal Elections Commission in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 6. The Curtis campaign plans to contact voters to let them know about the fraudulent calls. Voters who receive such calls are asked to contact the campaign at www.ClintCurtis.com. Curtis' complaint states that: * Kosmas and her committee knowingly misled the democratic primary election voters as to the origination of her telephonic communications and utilized state Democratic Party offices and telephone equipment for her federal campaign. * The Kosmas campaign claimed the state offices, which are leased by the Florida State Democratic Party, as her campaign offices in public communications with Democratic voters. * She knowingly led the voters to believe that the communication asking for support in the primary was from the Florida Democratic Party when in fact it was from paid staffers. The unlawful calls continued even after the Kosmas campaign was notified of the problem. "Her campaign was given the opportunity to rectify the violations prior to the submission of FEC charges," Curtis said, "but apparently chose not to. If we can't trust her to honestly represent herself correctly on the telephone, can we trust her to represent the citizens of the district in Congress?" Curtis states that, "The Democratic Party does not make endorsements in the primary. Our party is not a handful of elitists, but rather a party of the people. We determine our candidates in our primaries. What has occurred is just another case of a political millionaire acting as if she is above the law and has no problem in attempting to deceive voters." The violations took place in multiple locations throughout District 24, including offices in New Smyrna Beach, Oviedo and Titusville. Curtis is facing Kosmas in the Aug. 26 Democratic primary. The winner will go up against the winner of the Republican primary and Independent candidate Gaurav "Garv" Bhola this November.

UPDATE 7:29pm PT: We've just gotten off of a testy phone call with Eric Jotkoff, the Communications Director for the Florida Democratic Party. We called him nine minutes after receiving the following email:

Brad, I am the communications director for the florida democratic party. I just found out that you posted on your blog false allegations of illegal activites. [sic] I would hope that you would remove the post until you gave the fdp a chance to respond. Please call me on my cell phone at [redacted for privacy]. Eric ---

Eric Jotkoff

Florida Democratic Party

While Jotkoff admitted on the call that he has not actually read the article posted above, he maintains that "the Florida Democratic Party strenuously objects to all of the so-called information in this story." He says Curtis' complaints are "frivolous" and "completely untrue" and that the FDP "patently denies these false charges by the Curtis campaign."

"The charges are unfounded," Jotkoff told us. "What Mr. Curtis was complaining about, the Florida Democratic Party has offices there, doing general activities, preparing to aggressively take on Tom Feeney who, as I'm sure you know, is one of the most corrupt members of Congress."

Jotkoff admits, however, that the signs for Kosmas were posted at the FDP offices in Oviedo. He says it's because her campaign requested they do so.

"I believe we had a few signs up. Just like we would have signs up for any Democrats running in our office," he said. But when we asked if they had any signs up for Curtis he responded: "I don't believe Clint Curtis asked us to put signs up. At this point, we've decided to take all of the signs down because of the allegations."

He was unable to identify who, at the Kosmas campaign, had made the request to put up signs, though he says he "know[s] that the Kosmas campaign requested the posters be put up."

The photos above (and others that we have) reveal that there were more than just "a few signs" posted for Kosmas at the FDP Oviedo offices. "Because there are signs in the window, it doesn't mean we're getting involved in the campaign," he snapped, before adding "even if everything alleged in Mr. Curtis' complaint were true, which they're not, it would be 100% legal to do everything there."

Curtis has not charged the FDP with wrongdoing, only the Kosmas campaign, yet Jotkoff took great offense to our story (unread by him as it was) nonetheless. The Kosmas campaign has still not returned either of the two phone calls we made to them seeking comment earlier today.

As to the email alleging that calls were made on behalf of Kosmas, from an FDP phone line ID'd as "KOSMAS FOR CONG," Jotkoff had no explanation. "We have our own offices and we're calling and recruiting volunteers. Suzanne Kosmas' campaign is not working out of them, not using them and is not involved in that," he claimed.

When asked if it would be a lie then to say that callers from FDP were calling on behalf of Kosmas, or vice versa, he said, "There may have been one or two calls, from one or two staffers, and they were reprimanded. Possibly." When I repeated that back to him he said he didn't know if that happened, but sometimes callers "go off script," which, he says, are carefully written. He suggests that perhaps that's what happened in the phone call described in the email posted above, though he couldn't explain the confusion about the phone number being ID'd as coming from "KOSMAS FOR CONG."

After a long call in which Jotkoff, the FDP Communications Director, berated "bloggers" like us for irresponsibly running allegations --- and charges filed with the FEC --- made by a candidate and a campaign staffer, he promised he'd get back to us over the weekend with information showing the charges to be untrue.

One example we suggested: Phone bills for the FDP phone number 407-365-7808, showing that the line was never ID'd as "KOSMAS FOR CONG". On that point, Jotkoff berated us for running "anonymous allegations from a Clint Curtis staffer who has a financial stake in the race." The allegation, however, was not anonymous, even though we removed the name of the emailer for privacy, as we explained to him several times. The report and the email both identify the emailer as a member of Curtis' staff.

The email says, at one point [emphasis added]: "I am supporting Clint Curtis and am on his campaign staff."

Jotkoff demanded to know the name of the emailer, multiple times, but could not explain how that answered to the substance of the charges. He was unable to explain what difference the name would make, even if that name was Clint Curtis (which it's not) and would only repeat that the charges were "frivolous and completely untrue."

After a number of other obnoxious comments, which we'll do Jotkoff the favor of not repeating here, and more queries as to whether we'd "remove the story" ("No, we would do no such things, we don't scrub stories here, but we'd be happy to post any evidence he has showing the allegations to be untrue," we told him in response) well...let's just say, given the way he dealt with a member of the media who has likely written more words than any other person in the world about the corruption of the filthy Tom Feeney, the FDP might want to revisit who it is they've put in charge of communications to the media. We'll look forward to Jotkoff's promised exculpatory evidence and hope he's a bit more polite --- and smart --- the next time we talk to him. Even though we're just "a blog."



