MADDOX, FDP LIEN SUBJECT OF EDITORIAL OPINION

The St. Petersburg Times didn't waste any time in are seriously questioning the legacy of former Florida Democratic Party Chairman and current gubernatorial candidate Scott Maddox in the wake of an Internal Revenue Service lien for not paying payroll and Social Security taxes which had been deducted from employees' checks. The Times notes in today's editorial:

But as his successor, former congresswoman Karen Thurman, is discovering, tax delinquency is not Maddox's only legacy. She sought the job at a time when people were questioning how Maddox, while party chairman, could pocket $10,000 to sit next to a developer in a Leon County Commission meeting. She was asked to investigate a cozy contract Maddox gave his former spokeswoman, Allie Merzer. Now Thurman has party officials asking about $900,000 that seems to have vanished in a pile of illegible financial records.

And it closes:

The state Democratic Party wasn't exactly a finely tuned engine when Maddox took the wheel, but the IRS wasn't putting it up on blocks either.

That last sentence may have been typed a bit soon. Chairwoman Thurman has arranged $100,000 in backing from the national party office, about half the amount that the IRS is seeking, including penalties. The other half would come from the $98,000 which the IRS has frozen with the lien, and $19,000 from a recently closed bank account.

However, Thurman spoke Wednesday with county party leaders in a conference call, and slammed Maddox herself, according to this article from today's Tallahassee Democrat. When asked about IRS warnings over the past year or two, she said:

"You don't even want to go there. I can tell you that according to the audit that was done, the internal controls in this office were absolutely, unequivocally the worst. And so how one piece of paper was passed to another and how information was disseminated is way beyond me."

That last remark had to do with Maddox's statement that a certified letter from IRS was misplaced/lost on his last day as chairman, after he left for the Orlando meeting where Thurman was elected to replace him. Maddox resigned his party chairmanship in order to run for governor.

Former statewide prosecutor Melanie Ann Hines, who now works with the Berger Singerman law firm's Tallahassee office, has been brought on to determine what happened, and to look into approximately $926,000 that is reportedly accounted for.