The Florida Commission on Ethics next month will consider whether to dismiss a long-running case about allegations that former state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried did not properly disclose personal financial information.
Attorney Elizabeth Miller, who serves as an advocate for the commission, filed a motion to dismiss the ethics complaint against Fried. The motion cited affidavits from Fried’s accountant, Jeffrey Stern, and attorney, Jason Blank, who helped prepare financial-disclosure forms showing her income in 2017 and 2018.
The ethics complaint came after Fried filed amended financial-disclosure forms that showed substantially more income in 2017 and 2018 than she previously reported. But Miller wrote in the motion that Stern and Blank said the initial forms reflected available information at the time they were filed.
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The income came from the firm Igniting Florida, LLC before Freid was elected in 2018. “In summation, the reason respondent (Fried), her preparing lawyer and her CPA did not have access to the income information upon the original filings was because the underlying income information pertaining to Igniting Florida was initially incorrect and incomplete but was not known to be incomplete at the time of submitting the form … in both 2017 and 2018,” Miller wrote.
The ethics commission in December 2021 found “probable cause” that Fried did not properly report income. It later sent the case to the state Division of Administrative Hearings.
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But Administrative Law Judge E. Gary Early in November sent the case back to the ethics commission.
The panel will take up Miller’s motion on March 10. Fried lost the Democratic primary for governor last year.
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