| RIPTIDE | ▼ FLORIDA BLOWN FUSE O FPL’S CEO WENT AFTER A STATE SENATOR AFTER READING A NEW TIMES STORY. BY ALEX DELUCA n January 4, 2019, New Times published a story by staff writer Jerry Iannelli titled, “Florida Lawmaker Again Files Bill That Would Help Break Monopoly-Solar Stranglehold,” which described legislation proposed by then-State Sen. José Javier Rodríguez that, if enacted, would finally legalize solar-power purchase agreements across Florida. The filing of the bill was bound to ruffle feathers at Florida Power & Light (FPL), the largest power company in the nation and a utility that exercises a near-monopoly in the Sunshine State. Doubtless, the Democratic lawmaker and others who backed the legisla- tion expected some blowback. But what transpired was far more insidious. A recently leaked document — one of “hun- dreds” cited in “Dark Power: How FPL, other utilities neutralize opponents, grow profits,” a bombshell Orlando Sentinel report published July 27 in collaboration with the environmen- tal news nonprofit Floodlight — revealed that Eric Silagy, FPL’s CEO, copied and pasted the text of Iannelli’s story into an email, sent it to his minions, and sicced them on Rodríguez. “JJR at it again,” Silagy messaged two of his vice presidents on January 7, 2019, three days after the New Times story was pub- lished. “I want you to make his life a living hell...seriously.” The Sentinel’s Annie Martin and Flood- light’s Mario Alejandro Ariza and Miranda Green note that after Rodríguez filed the bill, he found himself the target of a malicious cam- GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS ▼ BROWARD ROUGH VERDICT O 4 4 EX-BSO DEPUTY CLEARED IN 2019 ARREST OF 15-YEAR-OLD. BY ALEX DELUCA n April 18, 2019, Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) depu- ties Christopher Krickovich and Greg LaCerra were cap- tured on video pepper spray- ing 15-year-old Delucca Rolle and then smashing his face into the pavement outside a McDonald’s in Tamarac. The rough arrest began when Rolle tried to pick up a cell phone dropped by a fellow student whom police were arresting for fighting. Rolle, whose nose was broken in the incident, was initially charged with trespass- ing, resisting arrest, and assault of a police officer. But after footage of the encounter went viral, the Broward State Attorney’s Of- paign to sabotage his run for re-election in 2020. Piecing together leaked documents from a lawsuit involving an Alabama-based political consulting firm called Matrix LLC, the report- ers found that Matrix employees bankrolled political ads for an auto salesman named Alex Rodriguez, who ran as a third-party “ghost” candidate against the sitting senator and his Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia. Despite never campaigning, the third- “KNOWING THAT THERE WAS SUCH A COORDINATED EFFORT TO TAKE HIM DOWN IS TERRIBLE.” party Rodriguez managed to leverage the sur- name confusion into more than 6,000 votes. Garcia barely eked out a victory, besting José Javier Rodríguez by a scant 32 votes out of more than 215,000 cast. As the Sentinel notes, criminal charges have been filed in relation to the defeats of Ro- dríguez and an- other Democratic senate candidate, but Matrix and FPL have not been accused of wrongdoing. In an in- terview with the Orlando paper, Silagy de- nied knowing about or participating in a plot against Rodríguez, conceding only that his admonishment to his team to make Ro- dríguez’s life “a living hell” was “a poor choice of words.” New Times was unable to obtain comment from Rodríguez about the recently surfaced email, but we were able to reach his former chief legislative aide, Gianna Trocino Bonner. “Senator JJR was not only one of the best bosses to work for, but he was one of the best and most committed senators and advocates,” Bonner tells New Times in a phone call. “Knowing that there was such a coordinated effort to take him down is terrible — not only for democracy, but for progress in the state.” Bonner points out that Floridians’ utility bills are being increased at a time when the cost of living is rising, while special interests have apparently influenced the process and undermined democracy in ways we’re only now beginning to learn about. Though the Sentinel story characterized the document leak as the result of an “epic feud” between Matrix’s founders, it remains unclear how reporters got their hands on the internal records. The paper’s story displayed only a fraction of Silagy’s email containing Iannelli’s New Times story, but Democratic activist Thomas Kennedy subsequently shared a screenshot of the document in its entirety on Twitter (see embed above). When New Times asked how he obtained the full document, Kennedy declined to say, citing his source’s wish to remain anonymous. The “living hell” story is only the latest in a recent string of scandals linked to FPL and Matrix. Under the headline “Consultants for FPL Covertly Monitored Journalist After Critical Coverage,” a June 24 collaboration Photo courtesy of Florida Power & Light A leaked document shows FPL CEO ordering employees to make former State Senator José Javier Rodríguez’s life a “living hell.” among Ariza, Martin, and the Florida Times- Union, detailed how the power company had allegedly hired Matrix consultants to spy on Times-Union columnist Nate Monroe after Monroe criticized the company’s wooing of Jacksonville City Council members. (FPL and Silagy denied involvement.) And on Monday and Tuesday of this week, respectively, the Sentinel (“Firm Working for FPL Took Con- trol of News Site, Let Execs Influence Cover- age, Records Show,” by Martin and Ariza) and the Miami Herald (“Powerbrokers: How FPL secretly took over a Florida news site and used it to bash critics,” by Sarah Blaskey) chronicled how Matrix covertly took control of a small, Tallahassee-based news site and used it to disguise FPL’s narrative as fact and attack naysayers. fice dropped all charges against the then-J.P. Taravella High School student and charged the officers instead: Krickovich with two counts of battery, and LaCerra with one bat- tery charge. (The charge against the latter was dismissed in June.) Images of the deputies slamming the Black teen to the ground sparked national outrage, leading to an outcry from local NAACP leaders and civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Nearly three years after the violent take- down, a Broward jury has cleared Krickov- ich on both charges. “The law in the state of Florida is that Chris Krickovich’s actions that day were 100 percent legal [and] 100 percent justifiable,” Krickovich’s attorney, Jeremy Kroll, said during closing arguments on July 25. Crump, who is representing Rolle, did not respond to New Times’ request for comment. The verdict came in on day four of the THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE CONFIRMED THAT AS OF JULY 25, LACERRA AND MACKEY REMAIN ON THE FORCE. trial, which began on July 20. A six-mem- ber jury unanimously found Krickovich not guilty of slamming Rolle’s head into the pavement and punching him in the head. If convicted, Krickovich could have faced up to one year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine. The jury viewed body camera footage and heard wit- ness accounts from BSO officials, former J.P. Taravella students, and expert testimony, including a sheriff’s training sergeant who testified that Krickovich “performed perfectly” in light of the circumstances. Kroll also told jurors that the site of the arrest was a “lit- eral war zone” of “mayhem” and that Krickovich responded appropriately to de- fend himself in a “mob situation.” The state contended that Krickovich acted illegally during the arrest and that the defense was trying to “oversell” jurors on the idea that the location was a war zone. “This isn’t the Ukraine.... It’s a shopping plaza in Tamarac,” prosecutors said. As New Times previously reported, Krickovich, LaCerra, and a third officer, Deputy Ralph Mackey, also faced charges of falsifying records and conspiracy to falsify records after allegedly fabricating details in the police report about what happened dur- ing Rolle’s arrest. The BSO fired Krickovich in December 2019. The sheriff’s office confirmed that as of July 25, LaCerra and Mackey remain on the force. 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