BFR
Briefings from the Rotunda
T
he bitter feud between lobbyist Frank Tsamoutales and former Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos that sparked harsh words and dueling lawsuits, has ended, not with a bang, but a whimper. They settled their respective lawsuits against each other in April, court records show. The terms of the agreement were not available in online court dockets. It all came down, as do most things in Tallahassee, to money. Tsamoutales said Haridopolos, who until recently worked at Tsamoutales’ Tallahassee-based lobbying firm, got his money for nothing, “trading on his former political positions to receive large sums of money” instead of “performing meaningful work.” Returning fire, Haridopolos said Tsamoutales never paid him. The story unfolded in dueling lawsuits filed in Leon and Brevard counties in February, an abrupt coda to the long friendship between the two. “This is laughable,” Haridopolos said in an email to INFLUENCE. “We concluded two failed mediation attempts … where he offered to pay me a fraction of what he owes me for consulting retainers over the last year and a half.” Haridopolos called the lawsuit “a legal stunt in an attempt to dodge paying his bills … . it will be clear that Frank has failed to pay me for services rendered.” Tsamoutales—who has worked on campaigns for President Ronald Reagan, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and former 48 | INFLUENCE SPRING 2016
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee—did not respond to requests for comment. However, Tsamoutales’ lawyer, Douglas Marks, wrote in his own email that Haridopolos was “sad and disappointing.” He said his client had treated the former politician “with nothing but kindness and generosity for years.” Haridopolos “was paid about $400,000 and we have the cancelled checks to prove it,” Marks said. “He was told at the beginning of last year that his contract was not renewed for 2015 … Most people would understand what that means.” The Tsamoutales lawsuit accused Haridopolos, a Merritt Island Republican, of fraud and breach of contract. Haridopolos joined the firm in 2013 as “chief strategy officer” for $240,000 a year. Haridopolos, Senate President in 201012, also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, ending his campaign in 2011. Tsamoutales has clients across the United States, his suit said. In Florida, Tsamoutales is personally registered to lobby for The Florida Bar, Honeywell International, Masonite Corp. and Rubin Communities, among others. On the other hand, “Haridopolos is an unknown throughout the country,” the lawsuit said. Tsamoutales made Haridopolos promise he would “devote considerable personal time and effort” to the job, his suit said. The reason: He was “concerned about a pattern of conduct on the part of Haridopolos that was thoroughly investigated
by journalists, where he had traded on his political position within the state of Florida to receive large sums of money for alleged services which he never performed, or as to which he delivered only token performance,” according to the complaint. In 2011, The Associated Press ran a story detailing how the then-Brevard Community College instructor had written a book on politics for the school, “getting $152,000 in taxpayer money for the effort.” Continued on page 51 >>
PHOTOS: Via floridapolitics.com
Longtime pals’ nasty feud spills out in dueling lawsuits