It’s a tale of greed, hubris, dumb shrewdness and more greed and hubris for good measure. For months we watched the slow downfall of Jim “Big Jim” Greer, former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida (hereafter referred to as the Piggy Bank). Greer hit bottom Wednesday when Florida state agents and Osceola County deputies came to his “posh Oviedo mansion,” as the Orlando Sentinel described it, and arrested him as he was shaving.
A statewide grand jury indicted Greer, 47, of Oviedo, a bedroom community of Orlando, on four counts of grand theft and one count each of money laundering and running an organized scheme to defraud. All are felonies. He was being held today at the Seminole County Jail on $105,000 bail and if convicted could get up to 75 years in prison.
Greer was forced to resign his chairmanship in February under pressure from the party establishment with whom he was at odds over his endorsing then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. Party right-wingers are backing in the Senate race former speaker of the state house Marco Rubio, whose horizontal ideological slide to the right has mirrored Greer’s vertical ethical freefall.
Greer had been handpicked by Crist to head the state GOP organization three years earlier:
Asked about Greer’s arrest at an unrelated press conference this morning, Crist said: “I think it’s obviously disappointing and surprising. I have faith in our judicial system.” He added that he didn’t feel “complicit” in anything Greer may have done.
Greer was a master of the good old boy brand of Florida state politics, and was effective at manipulating allegiances and rules to consolidate his power and achieve his ends.
It wasn’t until after Greer was removed from his chairmanship that the Piggy Bank discovered to its chagrin that Greer and his henchman, Piggy Bank Executive Director Delmar Johnson, had set up a contract between the Piggy Bank and a shell corporation, Victory Strategies LLC. According to the contract, Victory Strategies was to receive 10 percent of any large donations to the Piggy Bank.
Of course, Greer owned 60 percent of Victory Strategies and Delmar was the junior partner. By the time the shell company was discovered, Victory Strategies had paid Greer more than $125,000 and Delmar over $60,000 of the Piggy Bank’s money.
That was in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars of Piggy Bank money spent using these fabulous American Express cards issued to top Florida GOP guys like Jim Greer, Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, whose credit card habits might still land him in hot water.
Greer, never one to back down from a fight, now is suing the Piggy Bank for $123,000 that he said he was told he would receive as severance for stepping down from the chairmanship, but that the new leadership now disputes. And then there’s his allegations that two Piggy Bank board members had offered him $200,000 to leave months before he was thrown out, but that he claims he refused — on principle, no doubt.
But the best news for Greer is that it appears he has retained wise and capable counsel. When asked today about the charges against his client, Greer’s lawyer cited a fine point of law: “Prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich if they want it,” Damon Chase said. “We have every confidence in the world that he’ll be absolved of everything.”
I think the folks at the Piggy Bank believe Jim Greer might have bitten off more ham sandwiches than even he can chew.
