Who's Afraid of Tom Knight?

Donors in hiding are funding a steady stream of attack mailers from a Tampa PAC

Someone - more likely a bunch of “someones” - really don’t want Tom Knight to be a County Commissioner. And they don’t want anyone to know who they are.

Former Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight is squaring off against Ron DeSantis’ appointed Sarasota County Commissioner, Neil Rainford, for the Republican nomination as candidate for District 3 Sarasota Commissioner on August 20th. The winner will face NPA (No Party Affiliation) candidate Shari Thornton in November, as well as a write-in candidate.

Sarasota District 3 voters are receiving a barrage of negative mailers against Tom Knight, with over-the-top slams against him. They haven’t played the Nancy Pelosi card (yet), but these mailers contain messages framing Knight as a RINO (Republican In Name Only). The thing is, Tom Knight was the Sheriff in Sarasota County for twelve years. Sarasota voters already know him.

There have been at least 10 attack mailers so far.

These attack mailers say “Sponsored by Cop PC”. Cop PAC is based in Tampa, and is administered by Wendy White. Cop PC began in February 2024. COP PC received its first contributions from two other PACs.

PAC #1
COP PC’s first contribution, $15,000, came from the Jensen Beach PAC “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy”, which is chaired by Anthony Pedicini. Anthony Pedicini is a political strategist known for hardball tactics. Pedicini is active in Manatee County politics and was an instrumental player in the 2020 election of Kevin Van Osterbridge, James Satcher, George Kruse and other Manatee County Commissioners. Now Pedicini is working to get Manatee Commissioner Kevin Van Osterbridge (KVO) re-elected, but to the At-Large District 7 Seat, NOT the District 3 seat KVO currently holds. Seems Van Osterbridge doesn’t like his chances in the single-member district race. Judging from the “Hell NO KVO” signs around Manatee County, his constituents are unhappy. To make things more contentious, Van Osterbridge has Pedicini’s assistance to unseat George Kruse, Pedicini’s former client.

Benderson Development has put $29,500 into Pedicini’s “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy”. Pat Neal affiliates have given $142,666 to “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy”. Carlos Beruff affiliates have given $245,844 to Citizens Alliance for Florida’s economy.

”Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy” also received contributions from the PAC “Libertatem”. “Libertatem” received a $7,500 contribution from Benderson Development, and $330,000 from donor called “Conservative Leadership Committee, INC”. This is where things get very strange.

“Conservative Leadership Committee, INC” is identified as a political committee on the “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy” contributions listing, when you choose “display on screen” to inspect the contributions. But if you go search the political committees on the Florida Department of State’s website, you won’t find it. You will find it as a corporation listed on sunbiz.org. Now if you go back to download the csv file for the contributions to “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy, and paste the data into a spreadsheet, you will find “Conservative Leadership Committee, INC” listed as DBA (doing business as) “Conservatives”, which is a political committee. Most people aren’t going to take this step and won’t see that the actual funding source for the donor Conservative Leadership Committee, INC is the Florida political committee “Conservatives”.

“Conservatives” has received $2,125,000 from developer Pat Neal, and $62,500 from affiliates of developer Carlos Beruff.

I’ve been researching and writing about Florida dark money PACs for nearly ten years. I’ve never seen a corporation conflated with a political committee. This misleading move further conceals who is funding political PACs.

PAC #2
COP PC’s second contribution, $49,000, came from the Tampa PAC “Save Our Quality of Life”, which has the same address as COP PC and is also solely administered by Wendy White. Pat Neal contributed $6000 to “Save Our Quality of Life”. Pedicini’s PAC, “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy” has given $335,000 to “Save Our Quality of Life”. “Save Our Quality of Life has contributed $110,00 back to “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy”. Other PACs have contributed as well. As with so many Florida political committees, the PAC money shuffle is in full swing.

There clearly are money paths from COP PC which lead to Patrick Neal, Carlos Beruff and Randy Benderson. Maybe they are afraid of Tom Knight.

It is unclear why any of the non-PAC donors from other parts of Florida would have an axe to grind with Tom Knight or an interest in Sarasota politics. If anyone knows, please share!

If you are going to trash someone running for local office, the least you can do is show your face. Anonymous cowards putting out attack mailers aren’t looking for a healthy debate and a fair election. It’s easy to attack a candidate with lies when you are hiding. Sarasota County District 3 voters get to choose if the attacks of these gutless wonders have any merit.