Millionaire developer Hosseini wields great influence with DeSantis

TALLAHASSEE — Millionaire developer Morteza “Mori” Hosseini has been called the most powerful unelected person in Florida and a close adviser and donor to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president in 2024.

The 68-year-old Iranian-American developer from Volusia County has raised millions for his “beloved” University of Florida and his alma mater, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He and his family raised millions more for numerous charities, but also the Florida Republican Party and state and local political candidates.

He’s also garnered headlines for getting tickets for DeSantis to play golf at Augusta National Golf Club, flying the First Lady Casey DeSantis to a defense contractor’s fundraiser in Jacksonville and frequently lending his private jet to the governor’s campaign.

More recently, Hosseini has been in the news for lending a fancy golf simulator to the Governor’s Mansion and playing a role in state transportation officials steering $92 million in leftover COVID funds toward an interchange project that would benefit one of his developments.

But outside of the circles of real estate development, state politics and higher education, Hosseini is not a household name.

“The average Floridian is probably not aware of his name, but he is more public than most donors not only because of his ability to raise millions but because of his appointment to highly visible positions,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

So, who is this multimillionaire who’s gained such close access to DeSantis after lavishing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and gifts on him? Hosseini himself did not return calls for comment and has said in the past he doesn’t like to talk to reporters.

“I know he’s a developer, and that he has incredible influence,” said former Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from Pinellas County who was forced by term limits to leave the Senate. “He’s been influential for over a decade.”

‘A long working relationship’

While Florida journalists have chronicled the relationship between Hosseini and DeSantis for years, the national media is just now learning about the power behind the throne as DeSantis ramps up his national campaign for president.

The Washington Post reported it received more than 2,700 pages of documents from 2020 and 2021 in response to a public records request that shows a long working relationship between DeSantis and Hosseini.

“They show Hosseini recommending someone for a position on the University of Florida Board of Trustees, calls on DeSantis’ schedule with the developer and the appointment of Hosseini’s wife to a different board,” The Post reported.

They also reveal requests from the governor’s office to attend receptions at the Governor’s Mansion and the State of the State address.

Hosseini has donated nearly $3.5 million over nearly two decades under his own name and through several of his corporations to the Republican Party, GOP candidates and other conservative committees and close to $300,000 to DeSantis and his PAC, according to state campaign records reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.

That doesn’t include the money he’s raised from other people and organizations.

“It’s no secret that the way to Ron DeSantis’ ear is through his campaign account,” said Anders Croy, communications director of DeSantis Watch, a political committee aimed at holding DeSantis accountable for policies that have harmed Floridians and curtailed their freedom.

Coming to America

Hosseini was born in Iran in 1955. He learned about business from his father, who owned a car dealership.

His father’s seemingly contradictory advice to a 10-year-old Mori: “Forget about morals, ethics and religion. You will make more money by being honest,” the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.

At age 15, Hosseini went to London, where he got a degree in aeronautics engineering. He came to the United States in 1976, three years before the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty and installed Ayatollah Khomeini as ruler.

He got his Social Security card in Florida in 1979, records show. He attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he got both a B.A. in aeronautical studies and an MBA.

He started ICI Homes in 1980, turning it into one of the largest residential developers in the state with more than 10,000 homes built and a revenue of $595 million in 2022, up from $379 million in 2021. ICI is one of the top builders in Florida and ranked 73rd largest in the nation by Builder magazine.

As he amassed a personal fortune, Hosseini gave to local organizations and charities, including his alma mater, Embry Riddle, as well as Daytona State College, where his wife, Forough, senior vice president of information systems for ICI Homes, sat on the board of trustees for several years.

His wife is the founder and chair of Food Brings Hope and a member of the United Way Foundation Board. DeSantis appointed her to the Children and Youth Cabinet in 2019 and reappointed her two years later.

Mori Hosseini was appointed to Embry-Riddle’s Board of Trustees in 1999 and became the first alumni to be appointed chair in 2014, by then-Gov. Rick Scott.

Under Hosseini, Embry-Riddle’s foundation grew by millions of dollars and the student union finished in 2018 was named after him. A center for women and men and veterans is named after his wife.

In 2014, Scott appointed him to the Florida Board of Governors for the state university system and then put him on the University of Florida Board of Trustees in 2016. He was subsequently reappointed by DeSantis in 2021.

He also gained local political power by giving more than $230,000 to county candidates, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported in 2014. And he influenced political appointments to boards that run Daytona State, Halifax Health Medical Center and other organizations, the News-Journal reported.

“If you want to get appointed to an office, you had better get to know Mori Hosseini,” T. Wayne Bailey, a former political science professor at Stetson University, now deceased, told the News Journal. “He certainly has pull.”

Nick Iarossi, a Tallahassee lobbyist who has been one of the few members of DeSantis’ inner circle since his first campaign for governor, told the Orlando Sentinel that Hosseini is effective “because he has a warm and infectious personality that you can’t help but like.”

Hosseini is also a “prolific fundraiser and spends time developing meaningful relationships with policymakers. Most of all, I hear over and over again from lawmakers that they want to help him because he never asks for anything that benefits him personally.”

A flash of anger

Hosseini showed a flash of anger in support of DeSantis at a UF board of trustees meeting two years ago. The issue was a decision to bar several professors from lending their expertise in court cases challenging new state election laws pushed by DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature.

Faculty called it a blow against academic freedom that threatened the reputation, ranking and accreditation of the state’s flagship university that Hosseini and others fought so hard to build up.

Rather than stand up for the faculty, UF administrators and the Board of Trustees chastised them for embarrassing the governor and jeopardizing his support of the university.

“This will not stand. It must stop. And it will stop,” Hosseini said. “ If you allow something to happen … that means you condone it. Enough. Let me tell you, our legislators are not going to put up with the wasting of state money and resources, and neither is this board. And we shouldn’t.”

UF faculty union president Paul Ortiz called it a huge moment for Hosseini and DeSantis.

“Think about how this must look to Mori right now, sitting on top of the world,” Ortiz said. “He took three nationally renowned professors out of the election case. Politically speaking, this is a real victory for DeSantis.”

That victory was short-lived. The three political science professors sued the university, which backed off the policy that prevented them from testifying in the first place.

Mired in controversies

It’s just one of several controversies harmful to UF’s reputation that Hosseini has found himself mired in since DeSantis reappointed him as chair of the UF Board of Trustees in 2021.

They include the hiring of controversial Surgeon General nominee Joseph Ladapo to the medical college, siding with the governor on reopening UF’s campus during the COVID pandemic, and hiring former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse as president of UF after the Legislature and DeSantis made executive searches exempt from state open meeting laws.

“As someone who has the ear of the governor, due to the millions in contributions he’s raised, you would hope he’d have the ability to protect the university against some of the policies of DeSantis,” said Daniel Smith, chairman of political science at UF.

Smith, one of the three professors targeted for giving expert testimony against the state, said Hosseini chose instead to back up DeSantis and the Legislature on issues affecting higher education.

Hosseini helped fast-track UF Health’s hiring of Ladapo as a professor. Faculty protested because of his views about COVID-19, masking and vaccinations that go counter to the mainstream medical community.

The hire boosted Ladapo’s salary by $262,000 a year, for a total of $437,000 combined with his state surgeon general salary.

Smith said Hosseini could have convinced DeSantis to kill other legislation that university faculty have sued to block. DeSantis has passed laws restricting what faculty can say about race and sexual orientation, killed funding for diversity, equality and inclusion programs, and blocked unions from automatically taking dues out of paychecks.

“Under his leadership, UF has fallen from a world-class learning institution to a school that censors its faculty — and the truth — to further the radical political agenda of the governor and his appointees on the UF Board of Trustees,” former agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried said.

As a member of the UF College of Law Law Center Association Board of Trustees, Fried has seen the impact the changes have had on retaining faculty and administrators and recruiting new professors.

“The people and faculty of UF are really aggravated with him,” Fried said, counting nearly 10 openings including law school dean and provost. “A trustee pushes the mission of the university, not the mission of Mori wheeling and dealing.”

Ethical issues over gifts

Two potential ethical issues have surfaced in recent months that raise questions about Hosseini’s influence with DeSantis, both reported by the Washington Post.

The newspaper reported that the DeSantis administration funneled $92 million of unspent federal coronavirus relief money to an interchange that would benefit a planned development called Woodhaven that Hosseini owned nearby. Hosseini had spent years trying to get the interchange.

The Florida Department of Transportation’s decision to use the money from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue plan for the I-95 project sped it up by a decade, the Post reported.

The interchange would give direct access to land that Hosseini wants to develop rather than have to travel to the nearest exits four miles north or three miles south.

“With or without the interchange, we would have built Woodhaven there, but it certainly helps,” Hosseini told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in March 2019.

The second thing is Hosseini’s donation of a $27,500 golf simulator to the Governor’s Mansion. The governor’s office said it doesn’t violate state gift laws because it is a loan to the mansion and not a gift to the governor himself. A spokesman said the governor’s legal staff reviewed the deal.

But giving gifts to people in political office crosses the line, Jewett said.

“When you have a wealthy developer giving gifts to the governor it goes against the spirit of the law against donations that go beyond the $3,000 limit,” Jewett said.

Jewett and others have said that DeSantis had no inner circle other than his spouse, making it easy for someone like Hosseini to become one of his trusted advisers.

“To the degree that donors have any influence, he seems to be closer to the governor than others,” Jewett said. “We don’t know the extent of his influence, though. If DeSantis should win the presidency, Hosseini will certainly find himself getting a dinner invitation to the White House.”