Florida Man: Roger Stone, the Scott Rothstein Ponzi Scheme, and Politics in the Sunshine State
This article covers Roger Stone’s involvement in Florida politics, particularly the local politics of Broward County. Stone lives in Fort Lauderdale, which is located in Broward. It chronicles his involvement with the local Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein, a Ponzi schemer and convicted felon with alleged ties to organized crime. Stone has been heavily involved in the politics of the Broward Sheriff’s Office. It is the fifth article in a continuing series about Roger Stone. While it is not necessary to read the previous entries, it is recommended.
The first article covers Stone’s early life and involvement in Watergate, through to his work on the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign that brought him into contact with Roy Cohn and Donald Trump.
The second article covers his work on the controversial 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial campaign, which was marred by voter suppression activities as well as his lobbying and early political consulting for Trump in Atlantic City.
The third article covers Stone’s involvement in Indian Gaming and his activities during the 2000 election, which included coordinating Donald Trump’s flirtation with running for President under the Reform Party Banner, and Stone’s involvement in the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the 2000 Florida recount.
The fourth article covers Stone’s involvement in New York State gubernatorial politics from the years 2000–2010. During this period, Stone surrounded himself with a core group of campaign grifters who later played roles in the 2016 Trump Campaign and Stone’s original “Stop the Steal” operation.
This article is an excerpt from my book, While We Slept: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of American Democracy, available here.
ROGER STONE, BROWARD COUNTY POLITICS, AND THE SCOTT ROTHSTEIN PONZI SCHEME
At the same time he was engaging in political shenanigans in New York State, Roger Stone was also active in Florida. Stone and his wife live in Fort Lauderdale, located in the politically important, traditionally Democratic Party stronghold Broward County.
Stone has deep ties to South Florida. His wife, Nydia Stone, is of Cuban descent. Her father served as a military attache in the United States for General Fulgencio Batista’s Cuba. Up to 2019, Stone lived in a rented $1.6 million home on one of the finger islands off Las Olas Boulavard, Fort Lauderdale’s ritzy main drag.
Sometime in the early-to-mid aughts, Stone came into contact with a local Fort Lauderdale attorney named Scott Rothstein. Rothstein was the Bronx-born managing shareholder, chairman, and CEO of the law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler (RRA). During the early-2000s, the firm rose to become one of the most prominent in South Florida.
Rothstein, known for ostentatious displays of wealth, was a major GOP donor who sought to cultivate political influence. RRA employed the former Mayor of Boca Raton, a sitting Palm Beach county commissioner, former prosecutors, and others. Other notable politicians Rothstein courted included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Republican Charlie Crist (who switched parties and at this writing is now a Democrat running to be the Governor of Florida).
Accounts differ as to when exactly Stone connected with Rothstein. Rothstein’s law partner, Stuart Rosenfeldt, had served as Stone’s deputy on the 1976 Reagan campaign. According to author Chuck Malkus, who wrote a book about the Rothstein saga, Stone and Rothstein founded RRA Consulting together in 2003. The purpose of this consulting group was unclear, however, as it never managed to attract any clients.
Stone claims that he met Rothstein and Charlie Crist at a dinner in 2006 during which Crist told Stone that he wanted to arrange a fundraiser with Donald Trump. Regardless of the date, Rothstein and Stone became partners, with the former providing Stone with an office at RRA. Rothstein ultimately paid Stone $400,000 to serve as his political director. RRA’s server hosted Stone’s now defunct website The Stone Zone.
Stone also brought along the usual suspects to join him in his relationship with Rothstein and RRA. Dianne Thorne, who had worked with Stone on the “Committee to Take Back Our Judiciary,” the Larry Klayman campaign, and the Paladino campaign, was listed as the administrative and technical contact for the Stone Zone website, which was hosted by RRA. Michael Caputo was described in a lawsuit as having “close ties” to RRA.
“Roger is a guy we keep locked up in his office,” Rothstein told investigative reporter Bob Norman, speaking in jest. “I’ll shove food under the door every now and then to feed him, but when something happens and someone needs his help, we’ll open the door.”
Rothstein enjoyed remarkably close relations with the Broward County Sheriff’s office and the local police department. Twenty-eight police officials, including captains, majors, and undercover officers, guarded Rothstein’s family, home, and office. Lt. David Benjamin of the Broward Sheriff’s Office went as far as to arrest a woman on trumped up charges at Rothstein’s request.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office has a long and time honored tradition of corruption and ties to organized crime. From 1931 to 1950, the office was held almost continuously by the gratuitously corrupt Sheriff Walter Clark. In addition to being a racist, Clark infamously turned a blind eye to illegal Syndicate casinos operated by the “financial wizard of the mob” and boss of South Florida, Meyer Lansky.
In his rare but fantastic book Syndicate In The Sun, legendary crime reporter Hank Messick documents his collision in the early 1960s with official corruption the in the Sheriff’s offices in both Broward and Dade County to its south. Once again, the Sheriff’s office received payments from organized crime to turn a blind eye to the bolita numbers racket, based off the Cuban lottery, operating in South Florida.
In 2008, Stone became involved in the Broward County Sheriff’s election. Rothstein supported the Republican incumbent Sheriff Al Lamberti. Lamberti had been appointed by then-Florida Governor and Rothstein friend Charlie Crist after the previous sheriff, Ken Jenne, was indicted on Federal corruption charges.
Jenne, who had never served in law enforcement prior to being elected but rather was a politically connected lawyer, was known to have associations with several convicted felons with links to mobsters and drug smugglers. Upon his release from prison, Jenne was hired by Rothstein to work at RRA, where Roger Stone kept an office.
Lamberti’s challenger was the Democrat Scott Israel. Stone agreed to help Lamberti at a private meeting at Rothstein’s home that was attended by Lt. David Benjamin. Prior to the election, a series of dirty tricks occurred that reeked of the Stone modus operandi. Purged court records surfaced revealing that Israel had fathered an out-of-wedlock child in the 1980s.
Robocalls targeting Democrats featured impressions of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and other Republicans endorsing Israel. It was a classic Stone voter suppression technique. The impressionist turned out to be Stone’s friend Randy Credico, who he had met on the Golisano campaign. Credico later became embroiled in Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Lamberti defeated Israel.
“I can tell you without a doubt that Roger Stone was involved in that campaign,” Rothstein told Florida-based investigative reporter Bob Norman, referring to Lamberti’s election.
Rothstein’s world collapsed around him when it was revealed that he was operating a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme involving fabricated “structured settlements,” the largest in the history of the State of Florida. Prior to being arrested, Rothstein fled to Morocco as it didn’t have an extradition treaty with either the United States or Israel.
Remarkably, Lt. David Benjamin of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office drove Rothstein to the airport immediately prior to him fleeing the country. Benjamin was later sentenced to five years in jail for his activities on behalf of Rothstein.
Rothstein ultimately returned after his partner Stuart Rosenfeldt talked him out of committing suicide. In his book, Chuck Malkus speculates that Rothstein actually returned because of organized crime threats to the life of his family. It was believed that elements of organized crime, who may have been laundering money through RRA, lost money after Rothstein’s Ponzi scheme fell apart.
Rothstein was close to individuals with ties to Israeli organized crime. One of his close friends and business partners was Ovadia “Ovi” Levy, son of the the multi-millionaire Israeli-American hotelier Shimon Levy. Upon being released from prison in Israel for his associations with organized criminals accused of murder, Shimon Levy immigrated to Florida and set up the Sea Club Resort in Miami Beach.
Levy’s partner at the Sea Club Resort, Zvika Yuz, was operating a Ponzi scheme of his own and was later murdered. After turning himself in, Rothstein became an informant in a case involving the Italian Mafia and the Italian-American Gambino Crime Family.
During his tumultuous criminal career, Rothstein also crossed paths with the infamous con-man, financier, and sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein. As part of his larger scam, Rothstein lied to potential investors about legal settlements his firm was supposedly involved in. According to a 2009 lawsuit, Jeffrey Epstein alleged that Rothstein had falsely claimed to have represented several of Epstein’s underage female victims and also fabricated large settlements of up to $200 million.
Stone’s awareness of Rothstein’s illegal activities remains shrouded in mystery. After Rothstein turned himself in and began cooperating with Federal authorities, Stone viciously attacked him in the media. Stone claimed that the two had a falling out over his criticism of Charlie Crist and that he had hired a private investigator to look into Rothstein after he became suspicious of the sources of his wealth.
A bankruptcy court later tried to retrieve the $400,000 Stone received from RRA to remunerate the victims of the fraud, which Stone fought. According to Wayne Barrett, Stone received money from Rothstein, and promoted him on his website, after the period he claims they had a falling out.
PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE BROWARD COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE
After Rothstein fell from grace, Stone did a curious thing. In 2012, he switched his support from Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti, Rothstein’s former favorite, to his Democratic challenger Scott Israel. Only a year earlier he had referred to Israel as “an unqualified punk, a racist, and a thief.”
Why he did so is not exactly clear. One possibility is that Al Lamberti was so damaged by his and his office’s association with Rothstein that Stone was seeking to maintain his influence over the Broward Sheriff’s Office by switching teams.
Israel himself had a shadowy past, having been investigated ten times during the 1980s for incidents ranging from “using unnecessary or excessive force” to shooting at a drug suspect. Records from five of these incidents related to false arrests and theft were found to be missing from city files.
Like he did for Lamberti, Stone engaged in underhand tactics on behalf of Israel. First, he tarnished Israel’s Democratic primary opponent Louis Granteed. Robocalls from an organization calling itself the Tea Party of Miami endorsing Granteed were sent out to Broward County Democrats. The calls were meant to push Democratic voters away from Granteed, who quickly rejected the the “endorsement.” Stone was one of the founders of the the Tea Party of Miami. The Tea Party of Miami’s chairwoman was the ever busy Stone-associate Dianne Thorne.
Curiously, when the Tea Party of Miami wasn’t endorsing Democrats opposing Scott Israel for Sheriff, it was rallying in support of South Florida resort and casino projects being developed by the multi-billion dollar Malaysian gambling conglomerate Genting.
The Tea Party of Miami also paid actors $75 to protest a land deal that was also opposed by U.S. Sugar. Roger Stone has represented U.S. Sugar as a lobbyist for years. The so-called grassroots campaign was called “Stop the Land Grab,” which would be echoed years later with another Stone creation: “Stop the Steal.”
In addition to sending misleading phone calls tarnishing Israel’s primary opponents, Stone’s fingerprints were all over mysterious donations to Israel’s associates. Andrew Miller, the registered owner of a “news” organization called The Broward Bugle donated $120,000 to the ironically named political action committee Taxpayers for Integrity in Government, a group owned by Israel’s campaign manager, Amy Rose, and her husband.
The chair of Taxpayers for Integrity in Government, Todd Wilder, was a former Chief of Staff to disgraced former Sheriff Ken Jenne, who later worked with Scott Rothstein at RRA. The source of the donation, Andrew Miller, is the step-son of Dianne Thorne.
Miller, who later became embroiled in the Mueller investigation, is a South Florida political operative known to be very close to Roger Stone. Like Michael Caputo, Miller is reported to have served as Stone’s “chauffeur.”
After Israel was elected, he went on a hiring spree of individuals linked to Stone. Dianne Thorne was hired by the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) as a Community Liaison, a position that paid $68,000. Thorne was later forced to resign after it appeared she had lied about earning a bachelor’s degree.
The BSO also hired a woman named Jen Hobbs, who was Andrew Miller’s fiancé. A co-author of one of Stone’s books on the Kennedy assassination, Mike Colapietro, was hired at a salary of $45,0000 a year. Stone’s stepson, Scott Stone, was hired as a detective despite lacking basic qualifications for the position. Another BSO hire was Todd Wilder, Ken Jenne’s former Chief of Staff and chair of Taxpayers for Integrity in Government.
Thorne was forced to resign after the local press outed her for failing to provide evidence that she had graduated from college, as she claimed on her resume. Israel was later suspended by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after his widely condemned failure to effectively respond to series of nationally publicized mass shootings in Broward County. Why Stone supported Israel’s candidacy for sheriff remains a mystery.
The next article in this series will examine the biography of Michael Caputo, a close friend and associate of Stone’s who was later installed by President Trump as the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can find my collected writings here.