The Florida Republican Party on Friday pounded Charlie Crist, the Democratic candidate challenging Gov. Rick Scott in Tuesday's midterm election, over a new report on his alleged ties to the strip club industry.
Crist has come under fire for refusing to return contributions to his political committee from owners of strip clubs, including a $50,000 donation from Joe Rodriguez, who, although his club was closed ion 2009 for drug-dealing and prostitution, was allowed to sell it and never lost his business license,
Sunshine State News notes.
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Two other companies that own South Florida strip clubs, J.W. Lee Properties and S.B. Productions, gave Crist $20,000 each.
Sunshine State News also reported Friday three agents from the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco who'd worked on the prostitution and drug investigation all left the agency to work for convicted Ponzi schemer
Scott Rothstein's now-defunct law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler.
Meanwhile, the women at the shuttered strip club Cheetah weren't even making minimum wage, Sunshine State News noted.
"Doesn't that bother Charlie Crist that when Rodriguez was busted, he was in the governor's office, he saw the reports of how Rodriguez's strippers lived?" Sunshine State News journalist Nancy Smith writes.
"Can the candidate who makes such big, puffy speeches about a $10.10 minimum wage and the Republican war on women really justify taking $90,000 from strip club operators? Especially these?"
Crist has brushed off questions about whether he would return the strip club industry money, claiming the funds were from "a management company,"
the Huffington Post reports.
"Why would he accept money from strip-club owners and not give it back?" Scott commented on the refusal,
the Florida Times-Union reports.
"It doesn’t make sense to me."
Crist and Scott are locked in a tight race. A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll showed the incumbent
leading by 5 points against Crist, although
a Quinnipiac poll put Crist ahead by 3 points.
The Republican Party of Florida, reacting to the new report by the Sunshine State News report, was outraged.
"Once again, Charlie Crist is part and parcel of systematic fraud, corruption, and crony politics," said spokeswoman Susan Hepworth. "But this time, it involves the outright denigration and flippant disrespect of women. Will Charlie Crist ever come clean? Will he ever be honest about his corruption? Will he ever end his war on women? The people of Florida, and women in particular, deserve answers to these questions."
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