Former Florida state senator charged with three criminal counts in sham candidate scheme

A former Florida state Republican senator was charged Thursday with three criminal counts involving a sham candidate intended to siphon votes away from a Democratic incumbent.

An arrest warrant says Frank Artiles, the former senator from the Miami area, gave more than $44,000 to the fake candidate in the 2020 election. That candidate, Alex Rodriguez, has the same last name as the then-Democratic incumbent, Jose Javier Rodriguez.

He ran as an independent in a three-way race state Senate race, which was won by Republican Ileana Garcia by just 32 votes. She is not implicated in the scheme, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at a news conference.

But Rundle did say the investigation is not over.

“It violates everything that should be honest and straightforward about our elections,” she said. “Where it goes from here, we don’t know. We have not completed this investigation.”