Did GOP donations pay off for seller?

TALLAHASSEE — The more than $700,000 a New Orleans developer who was once involved in one of his state’s biggest bribery scandals invested in Florida political campaigns seemed to pay off last month when Gov. Ron DeSantis and the cabinet decided to buy a four-acre parcel from him for $83 million.

The developer’s campaign donations went to DeSantis, Attorney General James Uthmeier and possibly to CFO Blaise Ingoglia, funneled through a political committee run by a former DeSantis campaign advisor. Uthmeier and Ingoglia are both cabinet members.

The governor and Cabinet voted unanimously on Sept. 30 to buy the empty, sandy lot on a peninsula off the coast of Destin for an almost unheard-of price of $20 million an acre. Officials said the purchase was necessary to save the land from a condo development.

The property was owned by two companies whose majority shareholder is Robert Guidry, a hotel and condominium developer from New Orleans with land holdings in Florida. Guidry and his partners will make over $70 million off the deal. The state has 120 days from the date of the vote to close on the deal or the agreed-on price could expire.

Ingoglia, who has portrayed himself as a budgetary watchdog and has spent the last two months criticizing mostly large, Democrat-controlled counties for their spending, faced criticism after the decision because he raised an objection, tried to vote against the deal and then went along with it when DeSantis pushed back.

DeSantis pointed out that the Destin deal was part of a bundle of land purchases worth $167 million.

“It was presented as one item,” DeSantis said, adding that Ingoglia had to vote the entire package up or down. Then he chuckled.

Ingoglia said he didn’t know how to do it procedurally, but he wanted to be a yes for all but that item.

“OK, well, they’re bundled so we’ll take that as a yes and your objection is noted,” DeSantis said.

After the meeting ended, Ingoglia was pressed by reporters about his objections. “Let’s just say I have concerns,” he said. “I lodged my objections.”

He also conceded that DeSantis handled things properly. He later sent out a statement to the media that his main objection was the amount of the appraisal for the parcel.

A Department of Environmental Protection document reported that the governor and cabinet approved the item with the CFO’s objection noted.

Ingoglia did not respond to further requests for comment on his concerns or Guidry’s political donations.

The Destin land deal was fast-tracked by a last minute addition to the state budget by Sen. Jay Trumbull, R-Panama City, which moved it ahead of several other properties the state had identified to buy. The item, however, failed to include a dollar amount for the purchase. Records don’t show any campaign donations to Trumbull from Guidry, but Guidry and companies controlled by him donated $85,000 to the Republican Party of Florida between 2019 and 2022 — and the party regularly distributes money to its candidates.

Guidry donated $250,000 to DeSantis in 2018 when DeSantis first ran for governor, and $66,000 to former Attorney General Ashley Moody in 2018 and 2021. He also donated thousands of dollars to former Panhandle politicians Jeff Burns and Matt Caldwell, who served in the Legislature. More recently, he donated $6,000 more recently to Nathan Boyles, who was elected in July to the Florida House.

One of Guidry’s companies, Superior Waterfront Properties, donated $25,000 to Friends of James Uthmeier in February.

Guidry and his companies also donated $250,000 to several political committees, including $25,000 to Florida Right Solutions on August 15, which on that same day gave that same amount to Friends of Blaise Ingoglia, a political committee set up to raise money for Ingoglia.

Both Uthmeier and Ingoglia, appointed to their posts by DeSantis, must stand for election in 2026 to keep their current jobs.

Marc Reicheldelfer, chairman of the Florida Right Solutions political committee, did not return a call seeking comment. Reichelderfer is a legislative lobbyist who served as a campaign consultant for DeSantis when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 2023 and 2024.

Guidry did not return a call seeking comment.

Guidry also salted the campaign coffers of several Destin and Okaloosa county commissioners. His property will become part of a county park adjacent to the property on Norriego Point. The Okaloosa County Commission sent a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in support of the sale and pledging to spend $5 million toward the park’s development.

Environmentalists raised objections to the Destin land deal, however, because they said the money used was intended for other, more worthy conservation projects. Spending $20 million an acre on property that was not on the Florida Forever list meant those funds could not be used to preserve thousands of acres of more desirable land elsewhere, they said.

But Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, the third cabinet member, said it was a good deal for the state and for Okaloosa County because people will never “have to imagine” what the land “would look like with 250 condos on it.”

Guidry is a longtime Louisiana businessman who founded Guidry Enterprises over 10 years ago after selling Harvey Marine for $600 million, according to his corporation’s website. In 2009 he and his brother got involved in developing the Emerald Grande Resort and Harborwalk Village in Destin.

The company’s current projects include a 250-room Residence Inn in New Orleans and a “unique dual-branded 330 room resort located near the gates of Walt Disney World in Orlando,” the website says.

Guidry is probably most known for his involvement in one of the biggest public bribery scandals in Louisiana history. He admitted in court to bribing then-Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards $1.4 million in 1993 to obtain a riverboat gaming license, which he sold several years later for $170 million.

He negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors to testify against Edwards and was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay a total of $3.5 million in fines, restitution and forfeitures in 2001.

Guidry and his two partners bought the Norriega Point property in Destin in 2016 for just under $8 million. The Okaloosa County Property Appraiser has the land’s taxable value listed at $10.45 million.

The appraisals that led to a sale price of more than $80 million were justified through a combination of things: a development agreement approved by the City of Destin in 2009 with the property’s previous owners calling for the construction of a 79-unit condominium project with a marina, the assumption that the builders could sell units for between $3.4 million and $7.6 million, and comparable condominium marina projects, most in the more expensive communities of Naples, Clearwater and Sarasota.

The initial appraisal came to $55.3 million, but then the appraisers tacked on an additional $28 million for the estimated construction of the marina and road, seawall and other site improvements, bringing the total to $83.3 million.

State Sen. Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican, told Mid Bay News that he supported buying land for public purposes in the Destin area, but had doubts about whether the cost of Guidry’s land made sense.

“I only know that it was a very big price.”