Lawmaker Indicted on Forgery Charges

By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida

A day after being indicted by a grand jury on forgery and other charges, state Rep. Carolina Amesty, R-Windermere, turned herself in at the Orange County Jail on Thursday.

The 29-year-old legislator, who is running for re-election in November, was indicted on charges of forgery, uttering a forgery, false acknowledgement or certification by a notary public and notarizing your own signature, according to the state attorney’s office in the 9th Judicial Circuit. All four charges are third-degree felonies, and penalties can reach up to five years in prison for each offense.

Amesty was released after posting a bail bond, which was set at $20,000.

The state legislator’s campaign maintained that Amesty is “confident of her public vindication.”

“This prosecution, initiated just a few weeks prior to absentee ballots being dropped, is based on misleading reports from a partisan newspaper about a notarization of an employee verification background report, the truth of the contents which have not been questioned in any manner,” Amesty’s campaign said in an online post Thursday.

“A concerned citizen brought potential criminal wrongdoing to our attention, and in line with our obligation to investigate fairly and without bias, we requested a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation and thoroughly reviewed the facts and evidence of the case,” State Attorney Andrew Bain, an appointee of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, said in the statement.

“That information was presented to the grand jury who found sufficient evidence to return an indictment,” Bain continued. “I am committed to upholding fairness and justice in every case by applying the law equally to everyone and my record reflects this dedication.”

The Orlando Sentinel, which has run investigative pieces about Amesty, reported the freshman lawmaker is accused of forging a signature on a document she notarized as an administrator of her family-run school Central Christian University in Orange County.

According to the Sentinel, Amesty notarized a form in September 2021 claiming a veteran educator was an employee of her family’s university. The form was part of documents Central Christian submitted to the Florida Department of Education for state licensing. The educator, Robert Shaffer, disputed working for Central Christian, the Sentinel reported. Amesty responded to the Sentinel by submitting an affidavit attesting that Shaffer signed the form she notarized.

The Sentinel also reported that Amesty submitted false information about her own credentials as part of the school’s licensing efforts.

The Florida Democratic Party called on Amesty to resign or for the House to expel her.

“The charges Carolina Amesty is facing are serious, and they call every decision she’s ever made on behalf of her constituents into question,” Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said in a statement. “If she was willing to forge official documents for personal gain, there’s no telling what else she’s gotten away with during her time in office.”

Amesty won the House District 45 seat with 53.3 percent of the vote in 2022. She faces an election challenge this year from former Disney executive Leonard Spencer.

Earlier this year, Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh backed Amesty in a case filed by Nicolas Frevola, who served as a legislative aide for Rep. Fabian Basabe, R-Miami Beach.

The lawsuit alleged, in part, that Amesty falsely told Basabe that Frevola tried to run her over with a car in 2022.

Amesty defeated Frevola’s mother in a Republican primary in 2022.

Frevola filed the defamation lawsuit in September 2023.

But in a March motion, Amesty’s attorneys argued that she had legal immunity because the alleged defamatory statements were “made within the scope of her duties as a member of the House of Representatives.” Also, they argued that the defamation allegations should be rejected because they were not “published to a third party.”