DOUG GUETZLOE

(NOTE: The charges below have since been dropped, says Guetzloe. "This vendetta has come to its conclusion and a winner has been declared," Guetzloe wrote in an email to this Web site.)

Political consultant Doug Guetzloe was indicted in March for lying to the Florida Election Commission about work he did in a 2003 race for for Daytona Beach City Commission. He maintained he had paid for radio and mailouts in the campaign but prosecutors said “evidence showed that political consultant Robert Lewis paid Guetzloe for the work,” The Orlando Sentinel reported. Following is a story from the Orlando Sentinel:

Guetzloe, Pecora indicted in expressway scandal
Christopher Sherman Sentinel Staff Writer
Mar 28, 2007

Political consultant Doug Guetzloe and public relations consultant Ron Pecora was indicted by an Orange County grand jury in separate cases today.
Guetzloe faces two counts of perjury in connection with testimony he gave to the Florida Elections Commission last year in a case related to his campaign work in a 2003 Daytona Beach city commission race.
Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar said that Guetzloe had submitted sworn testimony to the elections commission that he paid for mailers and radio advertisements, but that evidence showed that political consultant Robert Lewis paid Guetzloe for the work.
Pecora was indicted on two counts of bribery for giving $2,600 in theme park tickets to former Orlando-Orange County Expressway Chairman Allan Keen. The charges stemmed from an incident Pecora brought to light last year. Pecora said he gave Keen 12 passes to the Disney theme parks and another 12 to the Universal parks for which Keen never paid him.
Pecora was taken into custody this afternoon and was being held on $5,000 bond on each count. Lamar in an earlier news conference did not reveal the other person indicted, but said about 5 p.m. that Gueztloe was indicted and being taken into custody.
Lamar said the grand jury had targeted "the culture of winning at any cost, while keeping at arm's-length distance the people doing the dirty deeds."
He said the investigation was "like peeling an onion" and would continue when a new grand jury takes over next week.
"This needs to stop in Central Florida, and we intend to do some actions here in Central Florida that will cause that to come to a screeching halt," Lamar said of the greed and corruption.
Pecora was fired in October from his longtime position as marketing consultant at the authority for allegedly charging for work he had not completed. After an internal audit following his firing, the expressway authority claimed that Pecora's firm owed the agency as much as $400,000 for uncompleted, overbilled or undocumented work.
Pecora maintains the expressway always paid him in advance for long-term projects and he has been trying to negotiate a final settlement with the agency.
Pecora also maintains that he advised the agency against hiring consultant Doug Guetzloe for public opinion research, although he agreed to be the agency's liaison with the political consultant. Guetzloe billed Pecora's firm in amounts that totaled $107,500 over two years. Pecora then submitted the subcontractor's bills to the expressway for reimbursement.
Earlier today, former Expressway Authority marketing and communications manager Bryan Douglas appeared before the grand jury investigating the agency for about half an hour today.
Douglas resigned from the authority last fall amid the scandal over management of the contract with Pecora & Blexrud.
Emerging from the grand jury's courtroom at noon, Douglas said he could not comment.
"Time flew," he said. "I just went in and answered questions."
Douglas was the second current or former agency employee known to have appeared before the grand jury. Deputy Executive Director Joe Berenis answered grand jurors' questions in January. He also was not considered a suspect.
The revelation of payments from the expressway authority through its public relations contractor to Guetzloe triggered investigations into the agency's spending.
Political consultant Robert Lewis testified before grand jurors earlier in the morning. Emerging from the chamber at about 10:20 a.m., Lewis said, "I can't divulge what I discussed."
But Lewis earlier said he paid Guetzloe as a political consultant about $80,000 between late 2002 and early 2004 for work in Volusia County. Investigators asked Lewis for copies of those checks and Tuesday told him that is what grand jurors would want to talk to him about.
A portion of that, $10,000 to $15,000, was paid to Guetzloe for work against 2003 Daytona Beach City Commission Candidate Darlene Yordon, Lewis said. Guetzloe's work in that campaign was subject of a Florida Elections Commission case. The rest of the payments were for petition drives aimed at getting a tax rollback on the ballot, Lewis said.