Who is Anthony Pedicini?

A Florida political hit man, cashing in

When three new Manatee County Commissioners were seated in 2020, it was clear that the Manatee County Commission would change. The corrupt ferocity of that change was unexpected. Less than three days after being sworn in and seated, the new Commissioners - George Kruse, James Satcher and Kevin Van Ostenbridge - made moves to fire the veteran, widely respected Manatee County Administrator, Cheri Corryea. By the end of February, in a 4-3 vote, the three new Commissioners (joined by Commissioner Vanessa Baugh) did just that. Manatee County residents were shocked.

In August 2023, the developer-backed Commissioners (minus George Kruse, who parted ways with his Pedicini cohorts) ignored public outcry and gutted wetlands protections in Manatee County. Kruse voted against the cuts to wetlands protections.

Area residents are wondering if the carte blanche given to favored development interests over the years in Sarasota and Manatee Counties is an important factor in the devastating flooding brought by Hurricane Debby.

Those new Manatee County Commissioners all had something in common: political consultant Anthony Pedicini, and the support of Carlos Beruff (along with other prominent developers). Pedicini is known for hardball tactics. Fliers targeting the opponents of Pedicini’s candidate clients make numerous false claims. I won’t repeat the lies here.

To his credit, Manatee County Commissioner George Kruse is no longer on board with the Pedicini/Beruff & friends agenda. Now Kevin Van Ostenbridge is challenging Kruse for Kruse’s at-large District 7 County Commission seat, leaving behind his current District 3 seat. April Culbreth was challenging Kruse for the District 7 seat, but switched races with Van Ostenbridge, and now Culbreth is running for District 3. It’s clear that Culbreth is part of a Pedicini strategy and that Van Ostenbridge’s re-election chances in District 3 didn’t look so good.

Would you re-elect a County Commissioner who agreed to probation to avoid being charged with misdemeanor larceny for the theft of a constituent’s bougainvillea? You can’t make this stuff up.

Who is Anthony Pedicini?

Pedicini is a partner in the firm SIMWINS, LLC, along with David Millner and Thomas Piccolo. SIMWINS stands for Strategic Image Management Wins. Prior to founding SIMWINS, Pedicini was affiliated with other political consulting firms, including being employed by Public Concepts, LLC and as a partner in the similarly named Strategic Image Management, LLC (also with Mr. Millner and Mr. Piccolo).

SIMWINS, LLC shares its address, 1509 E 9th Avenue, Tampa, with a number of political committees, notably Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy (CAFE). Anthony Pedicini is the PAC’s registered agent and chairman, and a Mr. Michael Millner of Jensen Beach is the treasurer of CAFE, which has taken in over $12 million in donations. Mr. Pedicini is affiliated with at least seven other political committees.

SIMWIN’s Tampa office offers one stop shopping for dark money, attack mailers and more. It’s a convenient system: the political committees take in contributions which are not constrained by the (now) $1000 limit on candidate campaign contributions. Political donors can give tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousand of dollars to political committees. And they do. Then Mr. Pedicini can have his political committees hire SIMWINS to peddle political messaging for his clients and against the candidates opposing his clients. It is very difficult for grassroots candidates who are not funded by development interests to compete financially with Pedicini clients.

This business model has proved highly lucrative for SIMWINS. Florida’s Department of State Campaign Finance website shows that SIMWINS has received over $35 million in payments since February 2020. Cashing in on trashing candidates is big business.

In Sarasota County, Teresa Mast and Neil Rainford are Pedicini clients. Mast and Rainford’s supporters are handing out a voter guide which makes dubious claims. Mast and Rainford also have received bundled contributions to their campaigns from development interests including Carlos Beruff affiliates, Pat Neal affiliates, Rex Jensen affiliates and Randy Benderson affiliates.

No doubt Pedicini has some influential friends. Peter Schorch, publisher of Florida Politics shared that Pedicini was an usher at his wedding. A number of people are on record saying what a nice guy Pedicini is. I have a favorite phrase when it comes to politics: everyone’s a nice guy.

If you are trashing candidates who would actually represent the public instead of a handful of deep pocketed donors, your work may not be respected by a lot of your neighbors. It’s easy to engineer wins when you’ve got unlimited funding from the pockets of development magnates.

It’s unlikely that those raking in dough trashing candidates have considered the toll their work may inflict on real people. Does Sarasota and Manatee flooding have anything to do with the carte blanche given to development interests who have bankrolled County Commission races?

Voters always have the final say. Here’s hoping voters are becoming wise to the huge sums spent on negative messaging designed to influence them.


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If you are getting a steady stream of mailers trashing a particular candidate, have a look at the disclaimer which tells you who paid for the mailer. You can look up the political committee on the state website. Then you can start investigating who is funding the mailer. I’ve written an e-book, Local Dark Money, researching the dark money trails and discussing how this funding impacts our community and local elections.

The Florida Trident has a great, in depth article about Pedicini’s incluence across the state of Florida. Check it out here.