VERO BEACH - In television and radio advertisements, millionaire Jeffrey Saull has told his carefully edited story.
He calls himself a Horatio Alger-type who parlayed hard work and a global economy into a million-dollar import business with customers such as Wal-Mart and Target.
He and his wife, Karen, who joined the crowded Republican primary for U.S. Senate last month, are spending millions to finance a citizens' initiative to double the state's homestead exemption.
They say they're trying to help average homeowners cope with Florida's rising property taxes.
What Jeffrey Saull doesn't say is that in the months leading up to the tax campaign, the business that brought him so much wealth was unraveling.
Relationships with major suppliers had degenerated into more than a dozen lawsuits, massive layoffs in China and death threats from the "Taiwanese mafia." Saull's longtime partner and most senior staff members had left or been fired.
Saull, 56, accused Wal-Mart in a $1-billion lawsuit of colluding to steal business from him. Suppliers claim it's Saull who has not made good on millions of dollars in payments.
Yet none of that has affected Saull's homestead campaign.
Saull's paid organizers say they're 8,000 signatures from the 488,722 needed to get the issue on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Political experts say it will be difficult to persuade voters to reject a tax cut.
But political leaders across the state, from the governor down to local elected officials, worry that doubling the homestead exemption would remove billions of dollars from the tax rolls, undermine the ability of local governments to meet pressing needs and lead to higher tax rates.
The Saulls, however, aren't answering their critics. They aren't talking at all. She hasn't talked to reporters about her Senate candidacy, and he declined repeated requests for interviews about his finances and their homestead campaign.
Political leaders across Florida are left to wonder: Who is the secretive millionaire who came out of nowhere to launch this politically explosive initiative?
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Amid the expensive homes of coastal Indian River County, the Saulls' multimillion-dollar oceanfront compound off State Road A1A is easy to miss. The couple moved there after spending $1.6-million in 1999 on the first parcel. Since then, they have spent at least $3.2-million more buying adjacent property.
Tucked between two suburban developments, the compound is shielded by tropical vegetation. Its gates are shrouded in black tarps. A sign warns of a guard dog.
It's as private as Saull himself.
Public records suggest that for more than 15 years, the Brooklyn transplant and University of Miami graduate worked largely unnoticed in Florida. The first sign he and his wife were seeking a more prominent public role came in January 2003, when they hosted a fundraiser featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres at the Boca Raton Resort and Club.
In the 2004 election cycle, the Saulls have contributed $95,000 through March 1, to Republican candidates and committees. They rank 18th among contributors to Republican causes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. The Saulls gave just $2,000 in the 2002 election cycle and none in 2000, records show.
The contributions have won Saull some opened doors in Washington, including an invitation to a luncheon with Republican senators, said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. He said he met the Saulls 18 months ago and they supported his U.S. Senate bid until he withdrew last year.
"I think sometimes with people who have been successful in business, they get exposed to politics and there is this aphrodisiac about it," Foley said. "It defies logic in some ways in that if I had the money Jeffrey Saull had I would be on a boat in the south of France.
"But if your long-term goal is you want to enter politics someday and you're starting at ground zero," Foley said, "there is no better way to do it than to put your name on TV."
Saull is described by acquaintances as a swaggering businessman whose self-confidence is matched only by his love of animals, his extended family and support for Israel.
But even those who have gotten to know him politically said they don't know much about his private life. Employees say he works mostly from his home, going to the office in an Aston Martin convertible maybe once a month. The Saulls, who have no children, share their compound with horses, dogs and cats.
"Never met him, wouldn't know him if I saw him," said a longtime Republican activist, Kay Clem, the Indian River elections supervisor. Her husband, Chester, was the running mate for the unsuccessful 1994 gubernatorial bid of Ander Crenshaw, now a North Florida congressman.
The Saulls' closest political ally is state Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, who appeared alongside Jeffrey Saull in his petition advertisements. Mayfield said he has known Saull for a couple of years.
By then, Saull was set financially. But there was a time when he was flat broke.
He earned nothing during 1987 and 1988 and had no way of paying $413,280 in unsecured debt, Saull's 1989 bankruptcy filing in Miami shows.
More than $300,000 of that debt was tied to a New York bank loan he and his mother, Sadelle Saull, had taken out for the family import business in New York, court records show.
Court records indicate he walked away without paying any of the debt.
A year later, things were looking up for Saull. Crest Industries, a nascent Miami company specializing in home improvement products, hired Saull as the president of a new subsidiary to sell office chairs and furniture. Crest would own 80 percent, Saull 20 percent. Crest filed for bankruptcy in 1993, news reports show.
But Saull's foray into office chairs continued. By 1995, two years after marrying Karen Mack, Saull was forming Tijid Inc.
One of his new partners, Richard Adams, was an employee of Canadian import giant Dorel Industries, with direct connections to Wal-Mart.
Before long Tijid was selling office chairs to the retail empire. Saull owned 52 percent of the company and ran it day to day. Adams and another partner, Terry Laster, owned the rest of Tijid.
By 1999, a Tijid subsidiary was selling candles. By 2002, candle sales to Wal-Mart, Target and Michaels Stores topped $40-million, by one estimate.
But public signs were emerging that the Tijid partnership soured.
In May 2002, Saull launched the first of what would become an avalanche of litigation. He accused Laster of robbing the company of millions of dollars by redirecting damaged merchandise for personal gain. Laster denied the charges and left the firm. The case is still pending.
By the summer of 2002, tensions with Tijid's Chinese suppliers were also rising, court records show.
Saull ordered his chief financial officer to withhold millions of dollars in payments, even as the factories warned they would have to shut down and force thousands out of work. Tijid employees said Saull ordered them to discreetly hunt for new Chinese providers.
Saull's motives weren't clear, former chief operating officer Bob Miles said in a deposition. Tijid partner Adams said in a deposition taken last year that Saull in July or August 2002 suggested he and Adams split $8-million by "steal(ing) the (Chinese) out of their money."
But Saull, in subsequent litigation, told the court he was withholding payment because the chairs failed to meet industry standards. In one company's case, he said, there was conflict over a $671,000 credit that Tijid said it was owed.
Manufacturers staunchly denied the allegations in 2003 when they unsuccessfully sought to force Tijid into bankruptcy by claiming it owed them $14-million. Litigation between Tijid and the Chinese companies continues.
The breaking point for the company appeared to come in October 2002, when four Tijid employees abruptly left China. Court records show a trusted employee for one of the Chinese manufacturers warned that the "Taiwanese mafia" had taken out a contract on Tijid employees, associates and their families due to the nonpayments.
Within a week, Saull fired two of the employees, Tijid's president and manager of its China operations, saying he wasn't satisfied with their work. Miles, who was in China at the time of the threat, abruptly quit.
In December, Adams, who continued working at Dorel throughout the partnership, severed his ties to Tijid. Within days he filed suit in his home state of Oklahoma, seeking $500,000 he says he loaned the company. The dispute remains unresolved.
Adams and Miles declined to comment. Both are defendants in litigation brought by Tijid.
Also in December 2002, Tijid's primary candle designer, California Design Enterprises, gave notice it was severing ties with Tijid.
Court records show Saull hired private detectives to follow the candle designers, eventually alleging in a February 2003 suit that the designers had tried to pass off Tijid-financed designs to Wal-Mart under the name of competitor Dorel. The designers denied the charge and filed a countersuit accusing Saull of breaching their contract by withholding millions in profits. They also said Saull left "bone-chilling threatening and harassing telephone messages" on their home phone. The litigation continues in Los Angeles.
Tijid's most recent salvo came in September, when Saull drew national attention by announcing a $1-billion lawsuit accusing Wal-Mart and 10 other defendants, including Dorel, of attempting to steal their designs for office chairs and candles. Saull hired high-profile trial lawyers Willie Gary of Stuart and Jeffrey Tew of Miami, the latter of whom has removed himself from the case, claiming "differences that were irreconcilable."
Dorel and Wal-Mart deny any wrongdoing. Tijid no longer sells to the retail giant.
"Mr. Saull seems to have made a mess of his own relationship with Wal-Mart and wants to blame everyone else for his failure," said Walter Greenough, a Chicago attorney representing Dorel. "From our perspective, the important thing is, Dorel never sold a single candle to Wal-Mart or anyone else. And long before Mr. Saull started selling chairs to Wal-Mart, Dorel was selling office chairs to Wal-Mart."
Saull said last year that he just wants to protect his livelihood. "I wonder if Wal-Mart will do this to me, a longtime partner, what they would do to others," Saull told the Miami Herald in September. "This is one mom and pop company Wal-Mart won't be running out of town."
The case is pending before a Miami federal judge.
Last week, Saull's photograph was removed from the Web site of the homestead exemption campaign, and his sister, Jayne, was named chairman.
- Times researchers Kitty Bennett, Jenny Lichtenwalner and Cathy Wos contributed to this report.
