Homebuilder Edwin Henry outed as money man behind false election ads targeting Kerry Smith

Santa Rosa County Commissioner Kerry Smith and his legal team have emerged victorious from a year-long battle to expose those responsible for misleading campaign advertisements circulated ahead of the 2022 election.

As part of the settlement, local homebuilder Edwin Henry has been identified as having funded production of a flyer circulated by Tallahassee-based Mark Zubaly and the companies Zubaly formed to conduct business, Nature Coast Conservatives Direct Mail Systems Inc. and Direct Response Campaigns Inc.

"We settled with Mark Zubaly for $50,000, the turnover of documents and an affidavit regarding who was behind the mailer," Smith's attorney, state Rep. Alex Andrade, said in an email.

The settlement agreement serves to close a defamation lawsuit Smith filed Sept. 30 of last year.

Included among the documents Zubaly turned over is an email from Henry to Chip Case. Case is listed as a managing partner of the now inactive Spartan Strategies LLC, which billed itself as a business specializing in "fundraising and political consulting."

The email, dated July 18, 2022, bears the subject line "Kerry Smith."

"This is the guy I want to do an independent campaign against based on his criminal record," Henry said in the email to Case. "He is a candidate for County Commission in District 2. The guy I am supporting is Rickie Cotton."

Smith and Andrade believe Case to be largely behind the ad campaign. Emails obtained through the legal settlement provide messages sent back and fourth between Case and Zubaly as the mailer is being developed.

The sworn affidavit Zubaly provided as a condition of the legal settlement lists Henry and Case as among those with "personal knowledge of the creation, design, distribution and publication of the subject mailer."

The flyer itself attempted to paint Smith as a violent wife beater, and utilized the tragic disappearance and murder of Florida resident Cassi Carli to score points against Smith ahead of the Republican primary.

"It appears to me that Mr. Henry may have been concerned that Commissioner Smith would oppose his business activity in the county," Andrade said in assessing Henry's apparent motive for paying the $13,000 Zubaly used to produce the flyer.

In his email, Henry states to Case that he has attached information he claimed to have uncovered on Smith, that Smith had been "found guilty several times of domestic violence against his then wife" that he violated probation after being found guilty of domestic violence, that an injunction had been filed against him and that the injunction had been in place for a significant amount of time.

Law enforcement and court documents, however, don't support much of what Henry states he found. Smith has been taken into custody twice on domestic calls relating to an ex-wife. He was arrested once in 2003 on a battery charge that was later dropped, and a second time in 2005 on what Smith claimed to be a trumped up charge of violating a domestic violence injunction.

The 2005 case went to court and Smith said he was acquitted when a primary witness changed his story. Court documents confirm the acquittal.

The defamation suit filed by Smith directly questions Henry's alleged findings and their use by Zubaly in political advertising.

"Mr. Smith has never been found guilty of domestic violence and has never been found guilty of violation of probation," the lawsuit states. "Most importantly, Mr. Smith has never been found guilty of harming or battering a woman."

The mailer cited an opinion article published by the South Santa Rosa News as its source of information about Smith's past.

"The use of the citation to the article was designed to make the false defamatory claims in the mailer appear credible, despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claims," the lawsuit said.

Henry answered the phone at a number he included in his email message to Case and, in response to a request for answers to questions about his involvement with Zobaly, sent a written statement that restated the unsubstantiated charges he had initially aimed at Smith.

On one side of the mailer paid for by Henry, there appeared newspaper headlines from the Spring of 2022 that had appeared over stories about the disappearance and killing of Cassie Carli by "an abusive ex-boyfriend."

The lawsuit states that Carli had "family, friends and coworkers" living in Santa Rosa County and that she was last reported seen in Navarre.

"I found the mailer personally egregious because of its use of Cassie Carli headlines, and the fact that Cassie’s father received one of these mailers in his mailbox a few months after his daughter was murdered," Andrade said in his email.

The settlement in the case comes just over a year after it was filed. For months before agreeing to terms, attorneys for Zubaly defended his right to publish what it had about Smith who, as a county commission candidate, would be considered a public figure.

"Review of the article and flyer make it clear that the flyer was substantially true, and that even if the statements were not substantially true, they were close enough to the truth that as a matter of law, the defendants did not act with reckless disregard for the truth," a court document written in Zubaly's defense said.

More: Santa Rosa County gives OK for developer Edwin Henry to clear land without a development order

Smith said that the financial settlement in the lawsuit meant less to him than learning the true identities of those most responsible for the mailer.

"This happened because I came out for impact fees and smart development. I'm amazed at how far someone will go to keep impact fees out of Santa Rosa County," Smith said. "Bearing false witness against one's neighbor is a bridge too far and it needs to be called out."

Andrade said he and Smith are prepared to drop the original defamation case against Zubaly and are now contemplating similar legal action against Henry and Case.

"This is stuff that doesn't ever need to be allowed to happen, ever," Smith said. "This is what keeps good people from seeking public office."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Commissioner Kerry Smith outs Edwin Henry as man being false flyer