Frank Artiles, a one-time Republican Florida state senator, will go to trial next February for his scheme to run a sham third-party candidate to sway a state senate race after a judge wrapped up three years of the defendant’s delaying tactics, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
After Republican Ileana Garcia claimed a 32-vote victory upset against incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez, Artiles said she won because he got the name of Alex Rodríguez, an auto parts salesman friend of Artiles who shares a last name with the incumbent and has the same name as a popular baseball player, on the ballot as an independent candidate to confuse voters. It worked: Alex Rodríguez took 6,200 votes even though he didn’t campaign or print a single yard sign.