A new story in the Miami Herald opens up a whole new line of inquiry in the crazy sham candidate story down in Florida’s ninth state Senate district involving Jestine Iannotti who ran as a one-time no-party candidate last year — but has been living in Stockholm with her boyfriend and their twin 16-month-old sons.
It turns out before she even filed to run for the state Senate, Iannotti had applied for residency in Sweden, according to screenshots of her residency application in Sweden.
Dagens Nyheter, a daily newspaper on the ground in Stockholm where Iannotti now resides, got their hands on public records which show Iannotti had already applied to live in Sweden more than a year and a half before she filed paperwork to run for state Senate in June 2020 against former GOP state Rep. Jason Brodeur and Democratic labor attorney Patricia Sigman.
The story casts a new light on previous reporting that indicated Iannotti — who hardly campaigned — relocated to Sweden in the wake of the election.
Iannotti is one of three apparent ghost candidates who filed to run in the razor-thin state Senate elections in 2020. Her race was decided by just 7,644 votes.
The alleged sham candidates scheme has led to two arrests on felony charges. Iannotti has been tied to the string of ghost campaigns allegedly funded by dark money to siphon off Democratic votes.
The Swedish newspaper teamed up with the Miami Herald and McClatchy to report on the latest developments with Iannotti. The newspapers obtained photocopies of Iannotti’s U.S. passport from tax authorities which reveal exotic travel dating back to 2014 that seemed at odds with the debt Iannotti reported on her campaign filing.
Documents obtained by the team of papers show Iannotti pressed immigration officials on Nov. 2, a day before polling, to expedite a resolution for her application and was finally approved on Feb. 11, 2021.
