Tag: florida

This Florida Democrat Denies Insider Trading, but Her Financial Records Raise Serious Questions.

Over the weekend, Republican Mike Beltran accused Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor of supporting a ban on congressional insider trading only after enriching herself during her time in office. Castor dismissed the allegations as “false,” but the exchange puts her financial record, and the timing of her support for restrictions, under renewed scrutiny.

Unfortunately for Castor, denial does not make her financial records disappear. Her disclosure after entering Congress in 2007 put her net worth at a minimum of $803,039; the estimate based on her 2024 disclosure places it between $7.2 million and $22.5 million, including jointly held assets and her husband’s investments. Public service, apparently, has not been bad for the household finances.

Then there is the timing of her stock sales. On March 10, one day before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Castor sold between $32,004 and $130,000 in stocks. That included between $15,001 and $50,000 in Berkshire Hathaway shares, which closed that day at $202.73 before falling to $175.97 just two days later. Franklin Templeton shares she sold also fell over the same period, from $20.15 to $16.76. 

Castor’s household investment portfolio also reaches into China. Between March and December 2024, Castor’s husband bought and sold between $7,007 and $105,000 in the T. Rowe Price International Discovery Fund, which invests in companies outside the United States and counts China as its fourth-largest country allocation. The exposure is indirect, through a mutual fund, but that still leaves a fair question: How much attention does a member of Congress pay to where the family’s money is invested? 

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Florida AG Sues Pfizer, Bourla Over Deceptive Marketing of COVID Vaccines

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday sued Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, alleging that the drugmaker misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective while not disclosing the vaccine’s potential risks to pregnant women, children and teenagers.

The 49-page lawsuit alleges Pfizer violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by deceptively marketing its vaccine to the public in turn for making billions of dollars in profit.

According to the complaint, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine marketing campaign focused on two principal themes: that the shot “posed no material safety risks” and that “mass vaccination was necessary to stop the transmission of COVID-19” — even though Pfizer never tested the vaccine’s ability to stop the virus from spreading.

Pfizer possessed extensive evidence that its vaccine caused serious adverse events — including 1,223 reported deaths following vaccination as of February 2021 and 52 miscarriages among vaccinated pregnant women. However, the company assured the public the vaccine was safe.

“Today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe — making billions — while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks,” Uthmeier said in a statement.

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Florida Judge Denies Rapper Rick Ross Special Treatment After Attorney Plays the Fame Card: “I Have No Idea Who You Are”

If you attempt to play the “fame card” in Judge Mindy Glazer’s courtroom, you will not have any luck.

Rapper Rick Ross found out the hard way.

William Roberts II, whose stage name is Rick Ross, turned himself in to Florida authorities on Thursday morning and was charged with two counts of battery.

Later on Thursday, the rapper appeared in the Miami-Dade Bond Court before Judge Mindy Glazer, where his attorney requested that his client be expedited from Miami-Dade County Jail because he’s a celebrity.

Judge Glazer, without missing a breath, quickly responded, “Hi, Mr. Roberts. I have no idea who you are, except as somebody here in the court who’s going to be treated fairly just like everybody else here,”

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Florida Attorney General files lawsuit against Pfizer for deceptive practices relating to its covid “vaccine”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a lawsuit against Pfizer and CEO Albert Bourla, accusing the company of deceptive practices involving the marketing and safety claims surrounding its mRNA covid-19 vaccine.

Uthmeier said Pfizer presented mass vaccination as necessary to stop the spread of covid-19 while assuring the public that there were no significant safety concerns.  “Pfizer told Florida families that mass vaccination with their mRNA covid vaccine was necessary to stop the spread, and that there were no material safety risks,” Uthmeier said.

He specifically pointed to comments from Bourla that, according to Uthmeier, pressured people to take the vaccine by suggesting they would otherwise endanger those closest to them.  “CEO Albert Bourla said, ‘If you didn’t take it, you were putting the people you love the most at risk. He called people who asked questions criminals,” Uthmeier said.

The attorney general also criticised Pfizer’s public statements about potential safety concerns following the widespread distribution of the vaccine. “In January 2023, after billions of doses, he said Pfizer had not seen a single safety signal,” Uthmeier said.

Uthmeier argued that Pfizer had enormous financial incentives surrounding the vaccine and spent heavily on advertising while generating tens of billions of dollars from sales.  “They spent 10 billion dollars on advertising. They brought in more than 80 billion from the vaccine alone,” Uthmeier said.

At the centre of Florida’s allegations is Uthmeier’s claim that the company failed to adequately disclose information about potential risks.  “What they didn’t say was that they knew about myocarditis in teenagers and young adults,” Uthmeier said.

He further claimed that Pfizer had received thousands of reports involving adverse events.  “They had reports of 1,000s of adverse events, including stroke and death, and they had reason to know the shot posed risks to pregnant women and unborn babies in the first trimester,” Uthmeier said.

Uthmeier also referenced information he said was recently revealed by Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and concerns about pregnancy.  “Recently, Senators Paul and Johnson revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci texted that the second dose theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester,” Uthmeier said.

According to Uthmeier, other federal health officials were aware of the discussion while pregnant women continued to be told that vaccination was safe.  “The CDC director and the Surgeon General agreed, but pregnant women, nevertheless, were told it was safe,” Uthmeier said.

The Florida attorney general also alleged that Pfizer had not established whether the vaccine prevented transmission before making claims about the broader public-health benefits of vaccination.  “Pfizer hadn’t even tested whether the vaccine stopped transmission,” Uthmeier said.

He said those allegations form the basis of the state’s lawsuit against Pfizer and Borla.  “That’s why we filed a lawsuit today against Pfizer and Albert Borla for their deceptive practices; what they did was wrong,” Uthmeier said.

Uthmeier framed the legal action as an effort to challenge what he described as a failure to provide Florida families with complete information about the vaccine.  “They assumed Florida families could not be trusted with the truth. Well, we disagree,” Uthmeier said.

He concluded by promising that his office would pursue accountability through the lawsuit.  “My office will hold them accountable. Thank you.”

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Former Congressman Sentenced To 10 Years In Federal Prison After Secretly Lobbying For Foreign Regime And Laundering Millions

A former U.S. congressman will now spend a full decade behind bars after being handed a 10-year federal prison sentence on Friday.

Former Florida politician David Rivera was slapped with the decade-long sentence after being convicted of secretly acting as an unregistered foreign agent for a hostile regime, failing to register under FARA rules, and conspiring to launder tens of millions of dollars tied to the illicit scheme.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported in May, Rivera and Nuhfer were found guilty by a federal jury following a trial that exposed the secret Venezuela-linked lobbying arrangement.

The previous Gateway Pundit report detailed prosecutors’ allegations that Rivera and Nuhfer accepted millions connected to the Maduro government while concealing the relationship and using Rivera’s political connections to pursue Venezuela’s interests in the United States.

Rivera had faced a statutory maximum of as much as 60 years behind bars following his conviction.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian handed down the 120-month sentence on October 2 following Rivera’s conviction on conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), violating FARA, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and four counts involving transactions in criminally derived property, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Rivera, 61, represented Florida as a Republican in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2013.

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Florida Deputy Charged After Using Flock License Plate Reader System to Search Woman 300 Times, Another Deputy Arrested After Looking Up 17-Year-Old Girl in Police Database

The misuse of Flock Safety camera systems continues to grow.

On Wednesday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the arrests of two deputies accused of improperly accessing law enforcement databases, including an automated license plate reader system that uses Flock cameras.

According to Gualtieri, Deputy Karl Gwynn, 57, ran 381 searches on a 35-year-old woman he had arrested years earlier because he reportedly wanted a relationship with her.

Of the 381 searches, 300 queries were made through the Flock ALPR system.

The second deputy arrested was 33-year-old Travis Stanton who allegedly used the police databases to gather information on a 17-year-old girl he was reportedly “romantically interested in.”

Per WTSP:

Two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies have resigned and face criminal charges after investigators said they improperly accessed sensitive law enforcement databases, including the Flock camera system.

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the arrests Wednesday, describing two unrelated cases involving a former deputy’s interest in a 17-year-old girl and another deputy’s repeated searches of a woman’s information across multiple databases.

The first case involves former Deputy Travis Stanton, 33, who resigned on Sept. 25 after the sheriff’s office began investigating his conduct involving a 17-year-old girl who had filed a complaint with the agency. Gualtieri said Stanton used several databases to gather information about the girl and her vehicle, including running her license plate through Florida’s vehicle registration system using a computer in his patrol car.

In an unrelated case, Deputy Carl Gwynn, 57, allegedly queried a 35-year-old woman’s information 381 times.

Sheriff Gualtieri said Gwynn had arrested the woman years earlier and wanted a relationship with her. Unlike the Stanton case, Gwynn’s alleged misconduct directly involved the sheriff’s office automated license plate reader system (ALPR), commonly associated with Flock Safety cameras.

Gwynn has since resigned and was arrested on four counts of unlawfully accessing secure systems with his bond being set at $25,000.

Stanton was charged with unlawfully accessing secure systems and his bond was set at $10,000.

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FL Democrat Senate Candidate Angie Nixon: Stopping Woke Is a ‘Racist Dog Whistle’

“Stop woke” is a “racist dog whistle,” Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Angie Nixon — who is hoping to be the next Senator in the Sunshine State — said in a 2023 interview.

“And now he has this stop woke agenda that he is going around the country talking about when we know that’s nothing more than a racist dog whistle,” she said during an interview on One Take Live, referencing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s slogan that Florida is where the leftist “woke” agenda goes to die.

“Stop woke… That is just a term that is devaluing black people,” she said, asserting that Republicans actually want black people to die and use wokeness as a cover.

“We know that you just want to remove woke and replace it with black people, and look, if Florida is where woke or black people go to die, that’s evident by what just took place on Saturday,” she continued.

This is far from the only hysterical accusation Nixon has made against Republicans, once stating that she can not work across the aisle with them because they are “literally trying to kill us.”

“And folks often say, like, ‘Oh, are you going to be able to work across the aisle with the Republicans?’ They are not trying to work across the aisle. They are literally trying to kill us, and they are doing it on camera,” Nixon said during an interview clip shared by RNC Research.

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Cops Fingerprint an 11-Year-Old Boy, Tow His Electric Dirt Bike With a City Wrecker, and Threaten a WARRANT After He Rode 300 Feet From Home to Go Fishing

An 11-year-old’s ride to a fishing spot in Oviedo, Florida, ended with police stopping him, fingerprinting him, towing his electric dirt bike, and ordering him to appear in court.

Cade Kirchner, a sixth grader, was riding toward a nearby pond with his fishing pole on Labor Day, September 7.

His father, Chris Kirchner, said Cade was about 300 feet from home and traveling on the road’s shoulder.

The family says the bike was limited to 20 miles per hour. FOX 35 Orlando reported that police classified it as a motorcycle under Florida law.

They say the 4,500-watt machine has pegs instead of pedals, so Florida law classifies it as a motorcycle, not an e-bike, meaning it needs registration, insurance, a motorcycle endorsement, and a licensed adult rider.

The citation was issued under Florida Statute 320.02 for an unregistered vehicle, which requires a court appearance.

Because Cade had no driver’s license, they put his fingerprint on the ticket to satisfy ID rules. The bike was towed because it “is not legally allowed on the roadway.”

Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek called Cade a “good kid” but said officers’ hands were tied by state definitions. Police added they could have piled on more citations and chose only one.

“The State of Florida regulates motorcycle use, and the definition of what counts as a motorcycle and what counts as an e-bike,” Mayor Sladek said.

“Even if it has two wheels, if it doesn’t have pedals, the State of Florida will classify that as a motorcycle and not as an e-bike.”

Body-camera footage shows an officer warning Cade that he had to appear in court or “they’re going to put out a warrant.”

The hearing is scheduled for a school day, meaning the sixth grader will have to miss class. ClickOrlando reported that his father plans to ask prosecutors to dismiss the case.

According to the news outlet, Cade got his e-bike after raising $900 through his summer business selling squirrel tables.

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Florida AG James Uthmeier: Sarasota Teacher ‘Tried to Cancel’ Eighth Grader for His Conservative Views

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Sarasota teacher Liz Ballard “harassed, disparaged, and deliberately tried to cancel an eighth-grade student for his conservative views.” The AG blasted the teacher in a letter to the Satasota school district.

“I sent a letter to Sarasota Schools after a Pine View teacher allegedly labeled an 8th grader a ‘misogynist’ based on his political affiliation, ignored his parents’ wishes, and disparaged the child’s father,” Uthmeier wrote in a Monday X post, sharing the letter he sent.

“If true, she should be fired and never teach in Florida again,” the Florida Attorney General added.

Ballard, who teaches history at Pine View School in Osprey, Florida, is accused of singling out the boy as the “conservative perspective” in her classroom and later labeling him a “misogynist” — a slur she went on to spread around the school, Uthmeier said in his letter.

Moreover, the teacher engaged in this behavior despite the boy previously informing her that “his parents expressly forbid him to take part” in her debates, and even “openly questioned the suitability and influence of the student’s father,” the Florida AG added.

Uthmeier also noted that “multiple HR investigations initiated by multiple parents” against the teacher have nonetheless resulted in her continuing to teach at Pine View School.

“Ballard singled out this student and, in defiance of his parents’ express instructions, pressured him to defend political positions on demand in front of his class-mates. She made disparaging remarks about his father,” he said.

“By facilitating the spread of a damaging label throughout the school, she engaged in the reputational destruction of a child,” Uthmeier added, asserting that “Ballard’s deliberate bullying and harassment” puts her in violation of “Florida law, School Board policy, and at least six ethical principles.”

In his letter to Superintendent Terry Connor and School Board of Sarasota County members, the Florida Attorney General reminded them that “Florida law prohibits bullying or harassment of any student at any public K-12 educational institution.”

“Based on the foregoing allegations, if true, Ms. Ballard should be dismissed and her educator certificate revoked,” Uthmeier wrote, before calling on the superintendent and school board to inform his office “of the actions the district has taken, or will take” to address the matter by October 1, 2026.

On Tuesday, the superintendent acknowledged having received the letter, adding that members of the school board “take the concerns seriously and will respond to the Attorney General’s Office,” according to a report by WFLA.

“Every student deserves a classroom where they feel safe, respected, and free to learn,” Connor said. “No student should face harassment, humiliation, or retaliation because of their beliefs or their family’s views.”

“Respect for students and parents is fundamental to the trust our community places in our schools,” the superintendent continued, adding that “the allegations in the letter warrant careful attention.”

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Russian National Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Voter Fraud, ID Theft Scam in Florida

Dmitry Shushlebin, 45, a Russian citizen living in Miami Beach, Florida, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison and three years of supervised release for organizing an identity theft fraud scheme and ordered to pay $458,839.69 in restitution.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Shushlebin’s scheme included efforts to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications to create fake identities that he could use to commit financial fraud.

Per the DOJ:

On July 24, 2025, the United States filed a four-count superseding information charging Shushlebin with conspiracy to give false information in registering to vote and submit fraudulent voter registrations, wire fraud, making false statements, and aggravated identity theft. Shushlebin pleaded guilty to all four counts on July 25, 2025.

According to court documents, Shushlebin hired Sanjar Jamilov, an Uzbekistani national, and others to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections in February and March 2023.

One purpose of registering these fake voters was to create synthetic or fake identities that Shushlebin could use to commit financial fraud. Shushlebin used the fake identities to obtain fraudulent credit cards and loans. He perpetrated this scheme against the victim financial institutions hundreds of times using hundreds of different synthetic identities.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division noted, “Those who engage in fraud and deception in our election processes will be investigated and prosecuted.”

“After arriving in the United States, Dmitry Shushlebin created sham companies to facilitate a multi-year financial fraud scheme. He used these companies to commit identity theft, which allowed him to create synthetic or fake identities that appeared real after they were used to submit over 100 false voter registrations.”

U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida added, “Voting is one of the most significant rights and responsibilities Americans have.”

“We will continue to investigate threats to the integrity of our electoral process and prosecute those who engage in fraud or other means to violate our nation’s voting laws.”

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