Just months before her election last year, Orlando City Commissioner Shan Rose notarized a registered sex offender’s request to vacate a conviction involving a pre-teen girl.
Now, Rose’s key opponent in her reelection campaign, Regina Hill, has made that routine notary act a campaign issue, arguing Rose was attempting to get the man’s offenses “deleted from his records.” She also claims Rose is romantically involved with the man and wrongly brought him to city events attended by children.
Rose declined to discuss whether she was in a relationship with Travis Denard Wright, while denying Hill’s claim about the events. State documents suggest Rose and Wright are in business together, and social media posts show Rose held an election victory party at a tattoo shop he apparently ran.
But she said her signature and seal on Wright’s court motion was the ordinary work of a notary public that she had no cause to refuse, a contention supported by notary guidelines and codes of conduct. Hill, Rose argued, is failing to fully explain the facts of the 26-year-old case and is making the claims because she is trailing in polls as she seeks to regain her District 5 seat on the Orlando City Council.
Hill was removed from office by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year after she was arrested and indicted on seven felony charges, including mortgage fraud and encompassing elder abuse. She is awaiting trial on those charges. She faces Rose, who won the special election to fill Hill’s seat, and community activist Lawanna Gelzer in Tuesday’s election.
Wright pleaded no contest in 2000 to a single charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor as part of a plea deal. He had previously been arrested and confessed to police that he had sex with a 12-year-old girl, according to court records. He was 18 at the time of the offense.
In January 2024, Wright’s attorneys filed a 348-page court motion notarized by Rose and asking, based on newly discovered evidence, that his plea be set aside, his judgment vacated, and the unlawful sexual activity charge, which is a felony, dismissed. Those actions, if approved, would mean he would no longer have to register as a sex offender, his lawyers said.
The motion argues that Wright, who has one misdemeanor but no other felonies on his record, was coerced by police and that newly discovered evidence could have exonerated him. It is still pending in Seminole County Circuit Court.
Hill posted a long Facebook video on Oct. 18, claiming an online blogger had told her about the notarized form and Rose’s alleged romantic relationship with the man.
Hill told the Orlando Sentinel she personally saw Wright with Rose at two official District 5 block parties hosted by Rose at Lake Lorna Doone Park in November of last year where children were present.
She also called on city officials to investigate if Wright had come into contact with any of them, saying parents deserved to be notified.
Rose “attempted to deceive the people and act as if this never happened by trying to get it expunged, deleted from his records, removed from the sexual offenders registry, and we never would have known anything about it,” Hill said. “And she would have continued, which she didn’t stop, through the years, to expose our children to a possible molestation.”
While Hill claimed in the video that Rose and Wright were in a romantic relationship, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel she acknowledged she didn’t know if that was true. Community members and city staffers, whom she declined to name, told her they had observed the two were in such a relationship, she said.
Rose said her personal life had nothing to do with the District 5 race, adding that if the Sentinel wanted to dig into her personal life it should also look into Hill and Gelzer’s personal lives. When asked if she brought Wright to events as Hill had claimed, Rose said Hill’s statements were false and meant to be a distraction from her campaign.
“Crazy you’re taking the word of a felon, who’s been arrested 20 times, and currently under indictment for exploiting an elderly person!” Rose said.
In her Facebook video, Hill also pointed to apparent connections between Rose and Wright in business documents.
Florida business records show that a Shaniqua Rose and a Travis Wright are listed as authorized persons in a company located in District 5 called Multiplicity Partners Orlando LLC organized in July 2024.
Records also show Wright was listed in 2022 as the CEO of a tattoo business, Black Ink Orlando Inc., at the same address as Multiplicity Partners.
Several posts made on District 5’s official Instagram account after Rose became commissioner were also made on the tattoo company’s Instagram. These posts included flyers for city events, some of which included the tattoo shop’s logo alongside other logos.
One Instagram post by the tattoo company is a video it says is Rose’s election night watch party hosted at the tattoo shop in May 2024. Rose came in first that May in a seven-way race to replace Hill, moving to a runoff the next month where she won the seat.
When asked about the company that lists her name and Wright’s, Rose said she didn’t know what a reporter was referring to. She said the tattoo shop was tagged in her Instagram posts because it sponsored events and confirmed her watch party was hosted at the shop. She said she has worked with the tattoo company’s staff directly for all city events the company has sponsored and that Wright has not attended any of those events.
The motion notarized by Rose claimed that Wright’s due process rights were violated because prosecutors suppressed and failed to preserve a rape kit and that the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office had either lost or destroyed the kit.
Notaries attest to the validity of a signature and the signer’s identity on official documents, and aren’t necessarily endorsing the contents of the document. According to the Notary Public Professional Code of Responsibility, they cannot “refuse to perform a lawful and proper notarial act without due cause.”
A notary manual published by the Florida Governor’s office in 2019 bars notarizing a person’s signature on a document only if that person is “the spouse, son, daughter, mother, or father of the notary.”
Prosecutors haven’t filed a response to Wright’s motion in court. A judge ruled they have until early November to do so.
A spokesman for the Seminole sheriff’s office said Wright’s motion was “another in a long line of efforts to avoid the consequences of his actions which will have to be resolved in Court.”