Commissioner Servia files 'hate crime' complaint after text message links her to fake LGBTQ group
Opponent's political consultant denies sending the messages.
Editor’s note: Updated with comment from political consultant Anthony Pedicini, and reaction from Misty Servia to Pedicini’s charge that her campaign may have sent the anonymous text.
Manatee County Commissioner Misty Servia has filed a “hate crime” complaint with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office about an anonymous mass text message sent to Republican voters in her district that she states she has been endorsed for re-election by an apparently nonexistent LGBTQ advocacy group.
Servia offered no proof but she indicated in the complaint, filed Wednesday, that the political consultant working for her opponent in the Republican primary on Aug. 23 may be responsible for the text message.
The consultant, Anthony Pedicini, told The Bradenton Journal late Wednesday that he had nothing to do with the message, and that he would be filing a defamation suit against Servia on Thursday. He said he believes Servia may have sent the text message to draw sympathy to a failing campaign, and that “she is out of control.”
“We don’t have to forge things about Misty Servia,” citing what he described as her liberal voting record and her calling Gov. Ron DeSantis’s COVID-19 vaccine policies “racist.”
In an email Thursday to The Bradenton Journal, Servia said the allegation that her campaign may have sent the text is “absolutely ludicrous and he knows it!”
The text message states: “The Manatee LGBTQIA+ Alliance is proud to support Misty Servia for County Commission. Transgender children must be protected from their ReThugLican Parents!”
Servia wrote in the complaint she considers the text message to be a hate crime because it uses “hate and prejudice against the LGBTQ community.”
“This is a sleaze-ball tactic that attempts to drive a wedge between our citizens. This is an attempt to defraud voters based on prejudice and hate.
“The entire Manatee County is at risk for violence and protests based on this lie,” Servia wrote
.Servia said she also will file a complaint with the Florida Division of Elections in Tallahassee on Thursday.
“I just think it’s horrible and should not be the standard for our democracy,” Servia told The Bradenton Journal.
In the report and in an earlier interview with the Journal, Servia said she did not know who was responsible for sending the text message, noting it did not include disclosure information usually required on political advertisements. She said it was a tactic similar to one used in 2020 to falsely tell Republican voters that Black Lives Matter had endorsed commissioner candidate Ed Hunzeker, the former county administrator. Hunzeker lost in the GOP primary that year to current Commissioner George Kruse.
Is opponent’s campaign consultant responsible?
Servia noted in her complaint that there is a thread that links Kruse’s campaign with that of Mike Rahn, her challenger in this month’s primary.
“The common element in the two examples is that political consultant Anthony Pedicini of Tampa-based ‘Strategic Image Management’ represents clients and would benefit,” the complaint states.
Pedicini denied having anything to do with either text message. He noted that he has close friends who are gay.
“We don’t do this type of thing,” Pedicini told The Bradenton Journal. “If I did this, I would literally be embarrassing myself in front of my family and friends.”
Pedicini said Servia, who he says tried to hire him to run her campaign, is “grasping at straws.”
Rahn did not immediately respond to emails from The Bradenton Journal seeking comment about Servia’s complaint.
The Bradenton Journal on Wednesday evening texted and dialed the telephone number that was attached to the text message. A recording said the number, which had a 941 area code, had been disconnected, and there was no response to the text message.
Pedinci said the sheriff’s office should be able to determine who sent the message. Political campaigns that send mass text messages have to register their phone numbers with the Federal Communications Commission. He said texts for his clients always come with a number with a 850 area code.
A theme of Rahn’s campaign is that Servia is too liberal for her south Manatee district and out of step with other Republican leaders like DeSantis. It is a message that Pedicini has reinforced vigorously on social media.
This is at least the second time Servia has taken legal action in response to attacks against her. Last month, her lawyer delivered cease-and-desist letters to Rahn and Commissioner Vanessa Baugh demanding they quit claiming that Servia last year described DeSantis’s COVID-19 vaccine policies as being “racist” while she was criticizing Baugh for how she organized a vaccine clinic in Lakewood Ranch.
Consultant threatens legal action against Servia
Coincidentally, an attorney for Pedicini earlier on Wednesday delivered to Servia a letter threatening legal action if she again bans Pedicini or others from her Facebook page because of comments they leave there. The lawyer said the bans have violated his client’s 1st Amendment rights.
Servia said she only bans people for 48 hours if they are abusive. She said the county attorney’s office has signed off on the practice.
Marc R. Masferrer worked as a newspaper editor in Bradenton for more than 15 years. You can reach him at Marc.R.Masferrer@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @mrmasferrer. You can also like The Bradenton Journal on Facebook.