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Consultant Denies Stumper Paid

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By JOHN W. ALLMAN

jallman@tampatrib.com

Published: March 17, 2009

TAMPA - Michelle B. Patty defiantly used her local radio show Sunday to deny she paid a woman $100 to campaign for then-Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson.

The woman, Towanda Speights, a single mother in public housing, stood by her story Monday. She said Patty paid her on Election Day to campaign for Johnson.

Patty, who owns a legal and medical referral service, was hired by Johnson's office in late 2008 to educate and register voters prior to the Nov. 4 general election. She was paid with taxpayer funds, which were not supposed to be used for campaign purposes.

Speights said she met Patty for the first time on Nov. 3 at a 6:30 p.m. meeting in an office on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Patty assigned workers, including Speights and at least three other public housing residents from Robles Park Village, to voting precincts where they were to wear Johnson campaign shirts and hand out literature.

There were about 18 people at the meeting, Speights said. Some of the people were there to meet with Jarvis El-Amin, a Tampa consultant hired to get out the vote for Kevin Beckner, who was vying for a Hillsborough County Commission seat against incumbent Brian Blair.

Beckner's campaign finance reports support Speights' story.

His campaign paid $100 apiece to 35 people to work on Election Day.

"They wore our T-shirts and handed out literature," Beckner said Monday.

The workers were paid cash from his campaign fund. The campaign also paid $200 to feed them, finance reports show.

The reports show his campaign also paid $1,800 in October to El-Amin's consulting firm, Enhancement Enterprises. Beckner said El-Amin hired some of the poll workers, but not all. Beckner said candidates are required to report such expenditures.

Johnson's campaign finance reports show no poll workers being paid by his campaign on Election Day. His campaign did pay El-Amin's company $2,500 on Nov. 3 for "consulting," records show.

Johnson did not return a call for comment. El-Amin refused to comment Monday.

Patty refused to say late Monday if she paid anyone to campaign for Johnson.

"Why would I tell you all what's what when I'm getting myself in a position to sue you all?" she said. "The truth will come out and it's going to come out shortly. Whatever little readers you have left, they're going to be gone."

On her radio show Sunday on WTMP, 1150 AM, Patty and El-Amin said they did nothing wrong. They said they worked with Johnson's office to educate voters. Patty was paid $16,204 by the supervisor's office in October as part of a voter education drive.

Patty chided Speights on-air, reciting the 35-year-old's criminal history. She used words like "joke" and "bogus lie" to challenge Speights' story, which The Tampa Tribune reported last week.

Speights said Monday that Patty was aggressive in her instructions to the workers: "I need you to run to these people and tell them to vote for Buddy, let them know that he's for the black community," Speights recalled Patty saying.

Patty also told them not to wear their Johnson T-shirts inside the voting precinct, if they had to go to the bathroom.

Patty paid the workers once the polls closed, Speights said. "She told us it would be a little while after 7 p.m. because she had to pay all her workers."

Patty never told them to keep quiet. "I don't know why she's so mad at me. I'm just telling what happened. It's not like I'm lying," Speights said. "I thought it was OK to pay us. I thought it was OK."

Reporter John W. Allman can be reached at (813) 259-7915.

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