Campaign may have crossed line
House officials are looking into a legislator's tactics.
By LUCY MORGAN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published November 3, 2007
TALLAHASSEE -- For more than two years now, Rep. Paige V. Kreegel has pursued a libel lawsuit against a political consultant who exposed problems from his past. He said his lawsuit was all about derailing dirty politics.
But as he gears up to run for re-election, Kreegel not only has done negative campaigning of his own, he apparently has done it on state time, with the help of his chief aide, using state computers.
Florida election law forbids state employees from using a state office during working hours to further a political campaign.
There's more: When a citizen asked Kreegel's office to produce e-mails that related to the negative campaigning, the chief aide denied the records existed. The citizen then went to the office of House Speaker Marco Rubio, whose staff was able to produce the public records that Kreegel's aide said did not exist.
Jill Chamberlin, spokeswoman for Rubio, said the House is looking into the matter and will make a recommendation to chief of staff Bob Ward and the speaker. All House employees serve at the pleasure of the speaker.
Kreegel did not respond to requests for comment. His chief aide, former newspaper reporter Barry Millman, refused to discuss the e-mails, saying he never talks to reporters.
Kreegel of Punta Gorda is a doctor whose district cuts across Charlotte, Lee and DeSoto counties. Trying to unseat him in 2008 is Keith Richter, who operates Computer Solutions of Southwest Florida.
Richter has a bachelor's degree from the University of South Florida, a master's from Canterbury University and was working on a doctorate from Canterbury, which is an unaccredited, online university in the Republic of Seychelles, a chain of islands off the east coast of Africa.
This fall he was hired as adjunct professor at Hodges University, a small private college in Fort Myers. It is e-mails between officials at Hodges University and Millman, Kreegel's aide, that show how the Kreegel campaign has tried to undermine Richter.
The e-mails indicate that Millman called an official at Hodges University and later e-mailed her a list of Web sites that identify Canterbury as not accredited by U.S. organizations.
Jeanette Brock, executive vice president of academic affairs at Hodges, said Millman called her and questioned Richter's credentials. As a result, the university demoted Richter from adjunct professor to a "teaching assistant."
A few days after Millman's call to university officials, the Fort Myers News Press raised questions about Richter's educational credentials. The news account quoted Kreegel questioning the "deception" and wondering "what else he's lying about."
Robert Anderson, president of a citizens watchdog group in Lehigh Acres, filed a public records request with Kreegel's office on Oct. 10, seeking any communications between any members of Kreegel's office andHodges University.
Millman answered Anderson by e-mail: "We have no records responsive to your request."
Anderson pressed his case, insisting that he knew e-mails had been exchanged. Millman's response: "We have no records in response to your request. There is no further response forthcoming."
Refusing to take no for an answer, Anderson called the office of House Speaker Rubio to complain and lodged the same public records request with the speaker's office. Rubio's staff found the offending e-mails on House computers and delivered them to Anderson.
In addition to showing how Millman e-mailed Hodges University a list of Web sites that identify Canterbury as an unaccredited online university, they indicate he simultaneously sent blind copies of the e-mails to Kreegel at his personal e-mail address.
In his e-mail to the university, Millman also called attention to a Lehigh Web site that referred to Richter as "Dr."
Richter said he has never claimed to have a doctorate but friends frequently referred to him that way. He says he spent more than $7,000 taking online courses from Canterbury and will now seek a master's degree at a fully accredited university to satisfy questions about his education.
"Kreegel needs to apologize for this," Anderson said. "Why has Paige Kreegel done this and why has his own aide lied?
"I voted for Kreegel in 2004 because I didn't know any better. It upsets me that he or his aide went out of his way to use state computers, state resources and he got paid for this."
Anderson says Richter is a friend, and he has started a political action committee -- House District 72 Coalition for Better Leadership -- to help Richter defeat Kreegel. The committee operates a Web site, paigekreegel.info, that compares Kreegel to a skunk in the grass, lists his traffic tickets, the bills Kreegel has introduced that failed to pass and raises questions about his background.
It was that background that was raised in political fliers late in the election in 2004 that prompted Kreegel to file a libel lawsuit against political consultant Randy Nielsen, Tallahassee lawyer John French and lobbyist Richard Gentry.
The fliers said Kreegel had been sued three times for malpractice, sued for paternity, sued for nonpayment of debt and arrested for criminal mischief. In fact, he had not been "arrested" and taken into custody for criminal mischief, though the state attorney did file a charge against him that was dropped.
"I have no problem with criticism of policy or ideology," Kreegel said when he filed his libel lawsuit in Charlotte Circuit Court in 2005. "I do have a problem with character assassination based on lies."
The defendants contend they were exercising their right to free speech and letting voters know more about a candidate. The lawsuit has not been resolved.
Lucy Morgan can be reached at lmorgan@sptimes.com or at (850) 224-7263.