When Paige Kreegel announced that he would be challenging Trey Radel for his congressional seat, the former state representative declared that Southwest Florida voters should expect a “congressman without distractions, a congressman they can trust.”
A political consultant who worked on Kreegel’s failed bid for Congress in 2012 says Kreegel is anything but.
“While Paige is exploiting Congressman Radel’s recent problems as a platform to hold himself up as a paragon of virtue, he is quite the opposite,” says California-based consultant Jason Roe, whose firm Revolvis counts Congressman Jeff Miller of Florida, Illinois’ Peter Roskam, and Michigan’s Fred Upton among its clients. “Our firm’s experience with Paige revealed behavior that we believe disqualifies him from office.”
In a lawsuit filed in the 20th Circuit Court (Charlotte County), Roe alleges Kreegel’s campaign owes his firm, Revolvis Consulting, $52,262.63 from unpaid bills invoiced during 2012.
The money owed to Revolvis, the suit alleges, is for services such as television production costs, which Kreegel paid to air on TV; and mail production costs, which Kreegel paid the postage to mail. Most of the money owed to Revolvis is for payments the firm made to third-party vendors.
Roe writes in an email that he’s now aware that Kreegel “was subject to several lawsuits personally and professionally, including one in which he failed to pay a consultant from a previous campaign.”
“We should’ve paid more attention,” said Roe.
Roe also alleges in a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that Kreegel directed his treasurer, Charlotte County Tax Collector Vickie Potts, to file illegal disclosure forms that do not itemize those monies due, as required by federal law.
Beyond the issues of non-payment and faulty invoices, Roe says Kreegel repeatedly asked his firm to set up an independent expenditure committee to run negative ads against Radel and Chauncy Goss.
“He did not want his committee to run negative ads and thought the best thing for him to do was direct an IE to do it,” said Roe.
“In one of my conversations with him, he asked me if authorities ever ‘tap phones’ to catch people violating the laws about coordination,” said Roe. “We repeatedly advised him that what he was asking us to do was illegal, but he subsequently put the wheels in motion including personally writing scripts and hiring a TV producer to create ads.
“It is my understanding that the consultant he retained for this refused his creative input and after Paige lost control of the effort, he scuttled it,” said Roe.
Kreegel finished third against Radel in a crowded 2012 primary for Florida’s 19th Congressional District. After Radel was convicted of cocaine possession, Kreegel became the first Republican candidate to file to challenge Radel.
For what it is worth, Roe is no white-hat political operative. During the GOP primary between Roe’s client, Sandy Adams, and incumbent John Mica, Roe reportedly mailed a knife to a Republican leader who Roe believed had betrayed his confidence.
Roe resigned as deputy campaign manager to Mitt Romney in 2007, Hotline On-Call reported at the time, after the FBI asked questions of his former boss, Feeney, regarding a golf trip he took with superlobbyist Jack Abramoff to Scottland in 2003.
As for the timing of Roe’s disclosing his lawsuit and complaint against Kreegel, Roe said he feels “it would be disservice to the district, the state of Florida, and the Congress, if (Kreegel) were to be elected and I feel obligated to come forward.”
Phone calls to Kreegel and Potts have not been returned.
Here is the lawsuit:
[scribd id=201665768 key=key-1shxi6nusihiay2c0jqm mode=scroll]
Here is the FEC complaint:
[scribd id=201665240 key=key-obgf2shyv2o745xoctx mode=scroll]
