by Bob Norman<\/p>\n
Pastor Bishop Gaspar Anastasi recently told his congregation that dark forces were out to destroy his faith-based drug rehab center in a rural neighborhood in south Lee County.<\/p>\n
“We’re going through like a tremendous battle … and the stuff that is coming against [us] is crazy stuff,” the 80-year-old native New Yorker told parishioners at his Word of Life Ministries church during his June 28 sermon. “Crazy demonic things. I mean demonic.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the alleged demons is 57-year-old Melinda Clarkson Isley, a married grandmother and small business owner who lives near Anastasi\u2019s 30-person faith-based New Life Dream Center (NLDC) in the Deer Run Farms neighborhood in southern Lee County.<\/p>\n
Anastasi sees Isley as an \u201cenemy\u201d out to shut down an institution he says has helped countless people overcome drug addiction. Isley said she only wants to know how an unlicensed rehab center ended up in her rural single-family zoned neighborhood \u2013 and why so many local politicians have thrown their support behind it, including Congressman Byron Donalds, who recently toured NLDC and is currently the frontrunner to become Florida\u2019s next governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this Sunday’s sermon, Anastasi essentially endorsed Donalds and congressional hopeful Jim Oberweis, who was present in the audience with his wife, to the flock.<\/p>\n
“It’s very important you vote and vote as you hear the holy spirit,” he said. “[Donalds and Oberweis] will not bow down to the system but will stand up for what is morally and biblically correct. That’s who I want to vote for. That’s who you ought to vote for.”<\/p>\n
Then, before taking tithes, he backtracked.<\/p>\n
“Don’t ever say, by the way, that the bishop told me who to vote for,” he said. “I did not tell you who to vote for. I only told you who I was voting for.”<\/p>\n
He had very serious reason to try to downplay the endorsement. Stating a position on any candidate for public office “clearly violates the prohibition against political campaign activity” for non-profit churches like Word of Life, according to the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n
“Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes,” the IRS states on its website.<\/p>\n
The separation of church and state, Anastasi said in a recent Florida Trident interview, doesn’t exist. And in his case that wall seems to be vanishing. Though the Florida Constitution explicitly bans the use of public funds to \u201caid\u201d any religious institution, Anastasi\u2019s friends in the Florida Legislature gave the center a $298,000 appropriation last year and were poised to provide it $1.85 million more in taxpayers\u2019 money before complaints from Isley and her neighbors stymied the effort.\u00a0(Attorney General James Uthmeier unilaterally announced in April he would not enforce the religious funding ban<\/a>, claiming it was unconstitutional). \u00a0<\/p>\n Anastasti, conversely, enjoys a great deal of freedom from government due to the religious status — he pays no taxes on the five-acre Deer Run Farms property purchased by Word of Life in 2022 for $1.45 million and the center is exempt from state regulation and licensing requirements.<\/p>\n Isley and her neighbors said they couldn’t understand how Anastasi started such a business in a single family neighborhood in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not against people getting help, I\u2019m against the way they went about it,\u201d Isley told the Florida Trident. \u201cDrug rehabilitations run by churches have no oversight. It’s scary. It shouldn\u2019t be getting funding from the state.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Following complaints against the center, Lee County hit NLDC earlier this year with a zoning violation, along with citations for unpermitted construction, among other alleged violations. Faced with possible closure, Anastasi has hired the politically connected law firm of Strayhorn and Persons-Mulicka to represent him in the fight. The latter named partner, Jenna Persons-Mulicka, is a former state representative now serving as the county\u2019s supervisor of elections.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder federal housing laws and the Americans With Disability Act, we\u2019re legally accepted in that location,\u201d said the pastor. \u201cThe county has all the information they need and hopefully we\u2019ll have it cleared up soon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He said he just wants to keep helping people with his center, which is all about the gospel. \u201cIt’s based on Jesus, the word of God, and the miraculous power of the Lord,\u201d Anastasi said. \u201cIt’s non-violent, it’s a beautiful type of program.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Isley, however, saw nothing godly in the pastor\u2019s involvement in a massive property fraud scheme back in his native New York that led to an in-depth Village Voice article about him in 2001 titled \u201cLet Us Prey<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Anastasi acknowledged in a phone interview with the Trident that his church was used as a front in the fraud, which involved swindling federal grant money meant to be used to improve low-income properties, and that he accepted payments in the scheme that he considered \u201cpart of a tithe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He claimed however that he was misled by his former lawyer and that all the money he received from the scheme went straight to the ministry rather than his own pocket. He credited that as a big reason he wasn\u2019t among the 16 people eventually criminally charged in the scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’m guilty because I was naive and I believed the attorneys,\u201d Anastasi said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t convicted of anything, thank God. I didn\u2019t buy a house or a car. I didn\u2019t buy new shoes. It all went right into the New Life Dream Center.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The past scandal only added to the distrust of neighbors in Deer Run Farms. And their digging, which included a trove of public records provided to the Trident, would uncover a web of political influence behind Anastasi rife with apparent conflicts of interest and misuse of public resources stretching from NLDC to the Lee Health system to the Legislature.<\/p>\n A bevy of state legislators \u2013 including Rep. Vanessa Oliver, Sen. Jonathan Martin, and even Persons-Mulicka prior to her appointment as supervisor in May by the governor \u2013 have at times assisted the New Life Dream Center to obtain funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the most powerful ally the church had was David Lee Klein, the former elected chair of Lee Health Systems. Public records show he served for years as Anastasi\u2019s political go-to guy and mobilized the then-public health system\u2019s staff to work on behalf of the church.<\/p>\n What the records show<\/p>\n David Klein is a true believer in Gaspar Anastasi.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s a holy individual,\u201d Klein told the Trident. \u201cI\u2019ve spent time with him. I’ve seen reverence in him. He administers to the sick. I’ve seen him welcome them into his home. He’s about as good a person as you can find.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Their relationship dates back to at least 2022, when the self-appointed \u201capostle\u201d endorsed Klein during his maiden campaign for the Lee Health board, which oversees a $2 billion budget and some 16,000 employees. Klein remained on the board after the health system was privatized in late 2024 but exited as chairman earlier this year.<\/p>\n Lee Health emails originally requested by Isley and obtained by the Trident show Klein repeatedly enlisted public employees to help New Life Dream Center despite Florida law restricting health district board members from involvement in the day-to-day operations of the Lee Health system. The records show Klein asking staff to arrange tours of the center, introduce Anastasi to business leaders, draft legislative appropriations requests and help secure public funding.<\/p>\n The effort was largely carried out by Nicholas Grant, Lee Health’s government relations director. Emails show Grant writing funding requests, contacting legislators, arranging tours for elected officials and promoting NLDC to community leaders. Michael Nachef, then vice president of government relations, and Chief Medical Officer Scott Nygaard also voiced support for NLDC and participated in the support efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cJust checking in to see if there is an update on possible state funding for the New Life Dream Center,\u201d Klein wrote Lee Health employees on Aug. 25, 2023. \u201cI see [Anastasi] on September 6. Thanks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Grant replied that he\u2019d tried and failed to obtain money for NLDC from one state-funded non-profit organization and suggested pursuing appropriations from the county and state. \u201cFirst Lady Casey DeSantis is a huge proponent of faith-based organizations,\u201d Grant noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Klein responded that the county had refused previous funding due to \u201cseparation of church and state issues\u201d and encouraged Grant to try to circumvent those concerns by making NLDC a subcontractor to a non-religious corporation.<\/p>\n \u201cThis seems like the next step in securing funding,\u201d Klein wrote to Grant. \u201cMay we have you please take the lead?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Klein even went so far as to suggest that Lee Health cardiac patients be diverted to NLDC, something he wrote in an email was \u201cpursued\u201d but ultimately \u201cdeferred.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The emails show the main focus of Klein and Grant was the Legislature. Grant described reaching out to numerous legislators, arranging tours of NLDC for them, and asking them to sponsor funding requests he was writing for the center.<\/p>\n But Klein said it was someone else \u2013 long-time Lee Health CEO Larry Antonucci \u2013 who led the efforts on behalf of NLDC.\u00a0<\/p>\n When questioned by the Trident, Klein acknowledged he was forbidden by law to direct Lee Health staff while he served on the board. \u201cI\u2019m not supposed to be in operations period unless somebody asks for my advice,\u201d said Klein.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy relationship goes through [Antonucci],\u201d Klein said. \u201cI brought the CEO out there [to NLDC] and said, \u2018Isn’t this worthy?\u2019 and it was up to him to decide. He supported it. I didn’t direct staff \u2013 the CEO directs staff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Antonucci, however, is never mentioned or cc\u2019d in any of the Lee Health email correspondence, and when contacted by the Trident, Grant said he never interacted with the CEO about NLDC.<\/p>\n \u201cI had no communication with [Antonucci] about it,\u201d said Grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the Trident reached out to Antonucci, who is leaving his CEO post in September, Lee Health media relations director Jaclyn Beavis responded instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLee Health System, Inc. has no comment regarding the ethics complaint filed against former Lee Memorial Health System Board member David Klein,\u201d Beavis wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Antonucci did, however, respond to Isley\u2019s concerns in a June 2 email in which he falsely claimed Lee Health\u2019s involvement was “limited to providing educational information to a non-profit organization seeking to engage in the legislative appropriations process,\u201d dubbing it \u201croutine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He further claimed that Grant\u2019s name was \u201cmistakenly listed on an appropriation that did not advance this past year\u201d \u2013 an apparent reference to the $1.85 million request that was ultimately withdrawn by Rep. Adam Botana, its sponsor, after residents raised concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grant was listed as the lobbyist on not just one but four of the rehab center\u2019s appropriation requests. He admitted to giving numerous tours of the facility to elected officials and meeting with business leaders seeking funding and patients, but said that even though he wrote several NLDC-related emails during normal working hours, he did so on his own time and \u201cout of the goodness of my heart.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There was one legislator, however, who didn\u2019t include Grant\u2019s name as a lobbyist at all. Vanessa Oliver\u2019s office left that part of the form blank, even as her co-sponsor in the senate, Jonathan Martin, included Grant\u2019s name as the lobbyist<\/a>. Martin declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n Also not mentioned on the form: Grant is Vanessa Oliver\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n Siblings join forces for NLDC\u00a0<\/p>\n Nicholas Grant told the Trident he would never have his sister sponsor any legislation or funding request he represented as a lobbyist.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like anything looking like she\u2019s giving me undue favor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet he admitted he introduced his sister to NLDC, wrote the funding request<\/a> (which listed Klein\u2019s name as an NLDC contact), and sent it to Oliver\u2019s legislative office.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Take a look at this program,\u2019 and she did, and then they asked her if she would sponsor the budget request,\u201d Grant told the Trident, adding, \u201cShe can make up her own mind, she\u2019s not going to listen to my advice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The emails, however, suggest Grant played a larger role.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Sept. 21, 2024 email copied to Grant, Klein thanked Rep. Oliver for accepting an invitation to tour NLDC “with some persuasive argument from Nick” and wrote they hoped to continue hosting elected officials “again with Nick’s help.\u201d<\/p>\n Grant insisted he wasn\u2019t involved in directly securing his sister\u2019s help for the state funding. However, emails show Klein thanked Oliver after being first informed by her brother that she agreed to sponsor the funding request.<\/p>\n After the $298,000 was approved, Anastasi also thanked Oliver in an email, telling her that with her \u201csupport and God\u2019s grace\u201d NLDC was \u201cpurchasing vans to safely transport students\u201d among other uses for the money.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a complaint filed with the Florida Ethics Commission, Isley alleges Rep. Oliver misused her public position. \u201cUsing a public legislative office to sponsor state funds to benefit her biological brother’s corporate lobbying client constitutes a clear misuse of public position,\u201d she wrote in the complaint.<\/p>\n Grant rejected the allegation, arguing that because he had no financial relationship with Anastasi or NLDC, he received no special benefit from his sister\u2019s action. As for Isley, Grant had harsh words.<\/p>\n “These people [at NLDC] are just living their lives,” he said, “and you have this bitch causing these people undue harm.”<\/p>\n Oliver didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment sent to her legislative office.\u00a0<\/p>\n Isley also filed an ethics complaint against Klein, alleging he \u201ccorruptly used his official public position as a Lee Health [board member], alongside public hospital personnel under his trust, to secure special privileges, financial benefits, and legislative advancements for a private entity (New Life Dream Center).\u201d<\/p>\n Klein, too, said he received no compensation from Anastasi for his work on behalf of NLDC and therefore didn\u2019t do anything \u201ccorruptly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Corrupt\u2019 means there’s gonna be a personal benefit back to me,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat’s the benefit? I have no business relationship with Gaspar. I have no contract and never have.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked if he had concerns about Anastasi\u2019s involvement in the New York property fraud scheme, Klein said he didn\u2019t know about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not aware of any fraud that he’s involved in,\u201d said Klein. \u201cHe’s a religious man. He lives a very modest life. I can’t imagine he’d do anything self-serving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Anastasi, meanwhile, downplayed his relationship with Klein, claiming he\u2019d only known him for a year \u2013 an assertion that contradicts Klein, the Lee Health email records, and his own 2022 endorsement. He also claimed he\u2019d met Grant only once despite the latter\u2019s admission to having conducted several NLDC tours.<\/p>\n Anastasi said his efforts to secure patient referrals from the expansive health care system \u2013 an effort also pursued by Klein \u2013 were unsuccessful.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe never got any clients from Lee Health at all,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s gonna take over Southwest Florida\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Anastasi said he\u2019s addressing the county code issues right now, including the installation of a new septic system, in hopes of winning approval from the county to continue operating despite the zoning issue. As for the zoning issue, his attorneys, including Persons-Mulicka, submitted a request for \u201creasonable accommodation\u201d on June 22.\u00a0<\/p>\n Isley argues in a third ethics complaint that Persons-Mulicka\u2019s involvement also represents a conflict of interest, in part because her husband, David Mulicka, is a county commissioner who ultimately oversees the code enforcement department that is taking action against NLDC.\u00a0<\/p>\n She also pointed out that Persons-Mulicka, while a state representative prior to her appointment to her current post by Gov. Ron DeSantis, supported the facility and at one point tried to help it secure taxpayers\u2019 funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe toured the facility, her name was on a funding request, and now she\u2019s getting paid by them as their lawyer,\u201d said Isley. \u201cThat seems like a total conflict of interest to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Persons-Mulicka didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment sent to her law firm and the elections office she runs. Anastasi meanwhile predicted the New Life Dream Center will ultimately prevail against his \u201cenemies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n “They used the political machine, they used the governmental machine, they used the zoning machine … they got no more weapons left,” he said during the recent sermon. “I declare the victory already ahead of time in Jesus’ name.”<\/p>\n With friends like gubernatorial hopeful Donalds still in tow, he may have reason to be confident. After Donalds toured NLDC with Anastasi and Klein last month, the congressman praised the rehab center for \u201cdoing vital work\u201d which the preacher said is just beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cGod’s gonna promote the New Life Dream Center in such a way that it’s gonna take over Southwest Florida,\u201d he told his followers. \u201cAnd God is going to use it as a role model for America.\u201d<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Florida Trident<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Bob Norman Pastor Bishop Gaspar Anastasi recently told his congregation that dark forces were out to destroy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[49418,548,49419,8052,49420,209,211,210,8600],"class_list":["post-372513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-advertise","tag-advertising","tag-banner-ad","tag-bradenton","tag-bradenton-advertising","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-purchase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}