Kevin White, who everyone wants to take down ...well, for good reason. And, he ain't no fucking democrat. For Christ's sake, he's NOT smart enough. Amen.
Anyway, check this out .. he resigned the stellar (justkiddin) Tampa Police Dept and became the finance director for an auto dealership AND THEN ran for city council ....
WHICH AUTO DEALERSHIP???????????????????????????????
Jas, is THIS why you all have had me surrounded again? I mean, I don't keep track of what the fucking FBI does but if you have an interest in it, than YOU WOULD. DUDE, why don't you just give it a rest? Like I am your big problem. You make it a problem. You know why? Okay I'll tell you ... because of ALL THE DIRTY TRICKS YOU PULL none of them have worked, so you threaten my life and that of my family members .... and because you and your fucked up friends are incapable and/or deeply ashamed (doubt that) of holding a conversation, you're back to your pissing all over the roadway wherever I go.
So, naturally I WANT TO KNOW. Which auto dealership was kevin white the finance director for????? My money is on Lindell and/or Kuhn.
One and the same.
I sing the same song over and over again ... it would be SMART to find out what I want. Probably isn't even something you'd mind giving.
I mean, you're selfish, mean bastards that's true. AND, you rob from charities to line your own pocketses and have a reason to wear your shitty, shiny clothes.
This is all true.
I clean up better than all yall. Yeah. Still. Yeah. I know it.
So anyway...........................................
I'm going to be finding out. Meantime, have another one of your meetings. Just be sure someone is there to whistle ... and yknow, ask yourselves.... should one of us dumb motherfuckers find out what it will take or should we just keep beating out meats?
Just ask yourselves.
Dude, I KNOW. So many folks want to 'hit that'. Relax. It never happened for them, either. If they say it did, they're fucking lying. Why do things the hard way? It just looks worse for you all the time. I dunno why that is but I suspect it's because you are gd morons who never even had someone say no. And, given all that, you are the same geezless bastards I've known all my life. There's a certain fondness there. And, given that, I should have been able to expect better behavior from you not some lil pukey shit waiting for me to die over so she can direct my estate. LMAO. Oh my god. That will so not happen. You're painting yourself into a corner. A really gooey mess you're making.
And, yeah, sweetie, got your back and your front.
Jason, save the lotboys willya? What am I ?? Your fantasy? You and every other person who has ever seen me. Believe me. I never knew that until recently. But, whatever. It's not really something I'm happy about. It just IS.
Swindler: I forged illegal deal with Tampa candidate
By Jeff Testerman, Times Staff Writer Posted: Aug 06, 2008 04:44 PM
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Special Report: Letters from prison, previous stories
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TAMPA — In letters from prison, swindler Matthew B. Cox says he arranged thousands of dollars in payoffs to then-Tampa City Council candidate Kevin White. In return, Cox says, White promised to vote his way on rezoning vacant land in Ybor City and Tampa Heights.
Cox also told the story about the payoffs to FBI agents in three days of debriefings, cooperation that was part of a plea bargain before his sentencing in November for fraud, forgery and identity theft, according to the federal public defender who represented Cox in Atlanta.
"Kevin White was the first thing the FBI wanted to talk to him about," said Mildred Dunn, who took notes during Cox's FBI interviews. "They told me they had an investigation going on down there."
Cox said he and his associates in a Tampa real estate investment company called Urban Equity solicited $500 contributions to White from subordinates, family members and friends, and then reimbursed them for the checks. The practice is a violation of Florida election law.
After funneling the illegal contributions to White, "I said, 'Now, anything we need to get rezoned, you'll vote our way, right?' " Cox recounted in one of his letters to the St. Petersburg Times. "White said, 'Absolutely! You help get me elected and I'll vote in your favor every time.' "
White made it into a runoff for the City Council in 2003. Cox said White then asked for more money, and Cox obliged with a $7,000 payoff, in cash. White triumphed in the runoff and told Cox and his partners "that without us, he couldn't have made it."
White, 43, parlayed his council success into an election in 2006 to a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission.
Told of Cox's allegations, White said he was unaware that Cox arranged illegal contributions, and he said he never accepted any cash.
"He's just lying. That's all there is to it,'' White said. "As a Navy veteran and a former police officer, I've made my life and career by serving others. Mr. Cox has made his life out of lying, cheating and stealing. So the public can determine who's lying here."
• • •
In 2002, after resigning from the Tampa Police Department and taking a job as finance director for an auto dealership, White stepped into the crowded race for the District 5 seat on the City Council.
Cox and his associates at Urban Equity, David Walker and Rudy Arnauts, were busy buying up properties in the city's quickly gentrifying areas of Tampa Heights and Ybor City.
Walker and Arnauts could not be reached for comment.
Cox said he was outside a Mediterranean-style triplex he was renovating at 403 E Amelia Ave. when he met White, who was putting up campaign signs in the neighborhood.
Cox had ambitious development plans, and he said White said he envisioned Ybor becoming "the next Hyde Park." A political alliance was formed. Cox said White told him he would need $5,000 to $15,000 to win the council seat, and Cox raised the money.
But Cox said that when he tried to hand White the cash, the candidate said he couldn't take it, advising Cox to get friends and co-workers to write checks to his campaign for $500, the legal limit on contributions per election in Florida.
That's just what Cox did. Records show that at least $8,000 was channeled into White's campaign from Cox connections, many from people who confirmed that the contributions were solicited, reimbursed and thus illegal:
• Sarah Frame, a broker who worked with Walker and Cox at United Capital Trust mortgage company, said Walker solicited a $500 check from her and another from her boyfriend, Kirk Stevens. Both were repaid.
• Turner Earnest, another United Capital Trust broker, agreed to write White a $500 check, though he knew nothing about the candidate.
• Jana Poat, a personal trainer who invested in Cox's Tampa Heights projects, said she wrote a $500 check to White's campaign at Cox's behest and was repaid.
Alison Arnold, a girlfriend of Cox's, said she was his "little tagalong" while White was running for office and witnessed Cox solicit contributions from employees, including Poat.
"Cox would give $500 cash to his business associates and ask them to write a check to White,'' Arnold said. "White was interested in redevelopment in Tampa Heights, and so were the guys at Urban Equity. They had the same interests."
Cox, Arnauts, Walker, Walker's wife and Cox's mother also wrote $500 checks to White.
Another $500 check to White came from the account of a purported real estate investor named Brandon Green. In fact, Green did not exist — he was one of the personas Cox invented to buy ramshackle homes, borrow against them with phony financial credentials and then walk away, leaving lenders puzzled about the whereabouts of the investor. In all, Brandon Green obtained $858,000 in mortgage loans.
Cox said in his prison correspondence that all the cash used as reimbursement for the campaign checks came from illegal deals like the ones involving Brandon Green.
White acknowledged meeting with the Urban Equity associates before the election, but he said he had "no earthly idea" that the contributions coming to his campaign were illegal.
Cox also arranged a series of checks to be sent to Bob Buckhorn's mayoral campaign, including one from the phantom Brandon Green.
"There was no deal with (Buckhorn)," Cox said. "We were just trying to cover all the angles."
• • •
In the March 2003 primary, newcomer White was the top vote-getter among the six candidates vying for the District 5 City Council seat. In the runoff, he faced his aunt, Bernadine White-King, a county social services worker. Now, according to Cox, White said he needed more money to buy ads for the extended campaign.
This time, Cox said, he delivered $7,000 to White in front of Cox's Amelia Avenue triplex, and White took it.
Cox said the money for the $7,000 payoff came from a fraud he and a friend pulled off in Orlando, where they used forged records and a phony identity to obtain a $50,000 mortgage.
The bogus ID Cox said he used in Orlando: Michael Kevin White.
The fraudulent mortgage was recorded in Orange County eight days before the council primary in Tampa.
Cox said the real Kevin White guaranteed that if he was elected, he could deliver the votes Urban Equity needed to rezone its vacant lots from single-family to multifamily to increase their value.
"Listen, guys," Cox recalled White saying, "the way it works is I'll get enough votes to pass your rezoning because when issues like this come up for vote, most of the members vote with the elected council member of the district. And I'll be the Ybor elected council member. If the other members don't support my votes in my district, then I don't support their votes in their district."
The word "bribe" was never used, Cox said, but the meaning of the agreement was clear.
"What he said was, by giving him that kind of money, we would have his unwavering support on anything we put before the City Council," Cox wrote in his prison correspondence. "It was very, very clear: We give you the money and you get us the votes."
White captured 53.8 percent of the vote to beat his aunt for the council seat. But Cox said White, whom he had nicknamed "Mr. Bling-Bling," never got the opportunity to vote for Urban Equity's interests on the council.
In late 2003, before Cox could file any zoning petition with the council, the Times published "Dubious Deals," an inquiry into questionable property deals involving Urban Equity. Cox fled Tampa with fiancee Rebecca Hauck and became a fugitive. An FBI investigation ensued. Urban Equity sank into bankruptcy, with dozens of fraudulent transactions revealed.
Cox cut a swath of forgery and mortgage fraud through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, rising to No. 1 on the U.S. Secret Service most-wanted list before his capture in Nashville in November 2006.
Prosecutors said Cox committed $8.6-million in fraud involving 77 properties in Tampa, $2.35-million in fraud involving 22 properties in Nashville, and millions more in fraud in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Facing up to 422 years in prison, Cox made a deal to tell what he knew about his accomplices. In November, he was sentenced to 26 years.
Now 38, Cox is at the Coleman Federal Correctional Institution in Sumter County, where he is working off $5.97-million in restitution with payments from the $25 per month he earns teaching a prison art class.
White, meanwhile, was elected to the County Commission two years ago in a landslide.
Last year, the Florida Elections Commission found probable cause that White committed 14 violations of state election laws in his run for the commission. Most violations stemmed from White's improper use of $6,100 in campaign money to buy tailored Italian suits and from filing false campaign reports that disguised the identity of his clothier. Facing $38,047 in fines, White settled with the elections commission for $9,500.
This year, White's former aide filed a harassment lawsuit against him, claiming she was fired for refusing his "constant sexual advances and propositions." The suit is pending.
Cox, in pleading to reduced charges and telling what he knew to the FBI, thought he might earn a reduction in his sentence. But while prosecutors said Cox was assisted in his crimes in Tampa by 16 co-conspirators, none has been charged since Cox talked.
The FBI did not return calls seeking comment.
"I told the FBI all I know about White and at the time the agents seemed very excited," Cox wrote from prison. "But then they called my lawyer and told her it wasn't enough to prosecute.
"I guess we should have videotaped it. Well, next time I bribe an elected official, I'm videoing the whole thing."
Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Jeff Testerman can be reached at (813) 226-3422 or testerman@sptimes.com.
Time line
June 27, 2002: Cox's Urban Equity group, through officer Rudy Arnauts, makes its first $500 contribution to the Tampa City Council campaign of Kevin White.
Nov. 5, 2002: Preparing to commit mortgage fraud, Cox and an accomplice use the name "Michael Kevin White" on a forged deed for property in Orlando.
Feb. 24, 2003: Cox and an accomplice receive $50,400 in a fraudulent mortgage on the Orlando property. Cox says $7,000 from these proceeds will be used to pay off White.
Feb. 27, 2003: Kevin White loans his City Council campaign $10,000.
March 4, 2003: White advances to a runoff for the council seat. After the election, Cox says he hands $7,000 to White to pay for new campaign expenses.
March 7 to March 15, 2003: At least 11 $500 checks are contributed to White's campaign from Cox, employees, relatives and Brandon Green. Cox says he solicited the donations, then reimbursed many of the donors, making the contributions illegal.
March 25, 2003: In a runoff vote, White wins a seat on the City Council.
March 28, 2003: White repays himself $6,000 he had loaned to his campaign.
December 2003: Having committed millions of dollars in mortgage fraud, Cox flees Tampa.
Nov. 7, 2006: White is elected to the Hillsborough County Commission.
Nov. 27, 2006: The Secret Service arrests Cox in Nashville.
Nov. 16, 2007: After a plea bargain that requires Cox to cooperate with federal investigators, he is sentenced to 26 years in prison and ordered to pay $5.97-million in restitution. [Last modified: Aug 07, 2008 11:57 AM]
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Comments on this article
by Frank
Aug 7, 2008 10:40 AM
Let me get this right.We got a convicted felon in prison on charges facing 422 years,he is trying to win favor to get his sentence reduced, owes 6 million in restitution,frauded various companies,and we're going to believe him.Why ?
by Joe
Aug 7, 2008 10:40 AM
Per white's comments about being Navy and a PO. Like those folks don't do crimes? Military and law enforcement aren't above the law.
by Samuel
Aug 7, 2008 10:40 AM
Mis-step-con-cheat? Mr. White is blacken his entire political life by his need for greed and tailored suits from Bod- Guilty? Let the jury decide-sentence? Probation if he turn on his co-defendants but then retribution from their friends. No co-op.
by Slow down
Aug 7, 2008 10:39 AM
Most of you people are making some pretty hasty judgments here. Buckhorn got money from these same people. This clown said he wanted "to cover all the bases? so he gave Buckhorn money. But Buckhorn didn't know where it came, right. Who else got $$$?
by sweet niblets
Aug 7, 2008 10:39 AM
looks like Kevin White is going down like a freshman chick on prom night!
by RJ
Aug 7, 2008 10:39 AM
Typical St. Pete Times Slander by Jeff Testerman with Federal cases. You really needed a story so you went to a con man to get one. Testerman obiviously has it in for Mr. White. Hopefully the St Pete Times can afford the lawsuit from a Black man.
by Larry
Aug 7, 2008 10:39 AM
KEVIN WHITE: Just one of the reasons why I moved away from Tampa...
by Mark
Aug 7, 2008 10:39 AM
If you fail at everything in life, you can always get into politics. Right Kevin? Nothing before politics worked out for this guy. I sold cars with him & he was a train wreck waiting to happen. The train is now about to derail. Great reporting SPT.
by Lucy
Aug 7, 2008 10:38 AM
Public service is a high calling. Some people should never answer the call. If you are interested in personal gain, you will lose your integrity and your soul on your way to jail.
by Vickie
Aug 7, 2008 10:35 AM
Itlooks like Bill Varian, SPTimes reporter, may have been on to something about Kevin White. Did he arrange to get his aunt Bernadine White King RIFed from her Hillsborough County govt job as payback? Check 06/07/08 BAYBUZZ archives.
by Bob
Aug 7, 2008 10:35 AM
Kevin bought & sold some property in Tampa Hgts while running for Tampa City Council. Who did he buy it from, who bought it from him, and how much did he make on the deal? Now, that's a story worth looking into!!
by Jo
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 AM
Okay, now someone needs to start investigating the other commisioners that seem to ALWAYS vote for the developers and their projects. (Brian Blair comes to mind.)
by lisa
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 AM
wow Tampa, you voted you deserve!
by Jay
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 AM
Both are con artists and should be cellmates.
by Jack
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 AM
White's compiling quite a history. Between him and Rose Chillura commission continues hitting new lows. Let's see,new clothes with county money, bribes, sexual involvement with employee, conspires with chillura and secret sources shame, shame!
by Fred
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 AM
Cox is a con artist attempting to mitigate his jail time. Mr. White on the other hand worked as finance director at an auto dealership which raises a question on his credibility. Both have failed the smell test! MR. WHITE, YOU SHOULD RESIGN!
by JR
Aug 7, 2008 10:33 AM
Two criminals. One in jail, one not. The politician is not. Wierd. NOT!
by Groovewrecker
Aug 7, 2008 10:33 AM
Cox is an idiot I know the family of the exwife and he has always been a idiot and has hurt lots of good folks.As for White he is probably involved in the scandal with M.Tagliarini in the downpayment assistance program.I can see that.
by David
Aug 7, 2008 10:33 AM
Cox is a huge liar and cheat. I wouldn't believe anything he says. I'm all for locking up crooked politicians, but so far there's no evidence that White knew that Cox was reimbursing people for their donations. I'll wait and see on this one.
by jason r
Aug 7, 2008 10:18 AM
White should resign, period. Shameful.
by Gary
Aug 6, 2008 8:51 PM
Come on, tell the truth Kevin. You were fired from TPD. Get off your high horse! You were not even allowed to serve in the auxiliary after you got the boot from TPD.
by Bridgette
Aug 6, 2008 7:15 PM
This will leave you with many thoughts.
by Brian
Aug 6, 2008 6:40 PM
Hey, Mr. "Navy veteran and former police officer", you might want to get your tailor (ol' what's-his-name) to start crafting you a fine, Italian wool prison jump suit. Maybe your aunt could monogram it for you.
by Jen
Aug 6, 2008 6:07 PM
He says "next time I bribe an elected official I'm videotaping the whole thing." I hope they take his lack of remorse into consideration if he's ever up for parole.
by Steve
Aug 6, 2008 5:45 PM
Kevin White should be in jail with Cox. He is a liar and a cheat, just the kind of person that should look out for the people.
by paul
Aug 6, 2008 5:45 PM
i read your paper everday and i think he shoul be beside his money man
by CAC
Aug 6, 2008 5:45 PM
Wow this is so not SHOCKING. This is the kind of person, the voters of distrct 5 put into office. The signs were always there. I hope enough evidence will come forward. To prosecute, and remove him from office. What a lack of character, KEVIN
by kay
Aug 6, 2008 5:45 PM
What in the world.... People will do anything. Nothing surprises me anymore..nothing
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LIVE from THE TAMPA NAIL HOUSE ... : Proud members of the drive-by media (just like Thomas Paine, father of America)... located in the midtown desired redevelopment center just one block from the river.
The City of Tampa and it's assorted city-sanctioned gang members need this property because it's in the middle of land they intend to develop for gambling facilities.
LaS VEgas here in Tampa : Ta-Vegas or Tam-Gas.But it's going to cost YOU a helluva lot of money as they defend their criminal acts in federal court due to what they are doing to my family and I in
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