A Florida state senator who resigned after unleashing a slur-filled tirade on co-workers was allegedly paying a Hooters girl and a Playboy model as "consultants" for his campaign, according to a report from the Miami Herald.
Frank Artiles—a Republican state senator representing constituents in Miami-Dade County—was discovered to have paid considerable amounts of money through his political action committee, Veterans for Conservative Principles, to individuals with little or no political experience. Heather Thomas, a former Hooters calendar girl, and Brittney Singletary, a one-time "Miss Social" for Playboy, were paid sums of $2,000 and $1,500 during Artiles' run for state senate.
Prior to her alleged consultant position with Artiles, Thomas worked briefly as a legislative aide for a now-retired member of the Florida House of Representatives. The Herald claims her 2015 application for that application listed no previous political experience, and the representative who hired her claimed he simply, "needed somebody for a week or two" until he could find a full-time aide.
Previous posts on her Instagram claim to show Thomas at Florida's House of Representatives, in addition to more recent pictures of her wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat:
Discrepancies involving Thomas and Singletary center around funds allocated for a "fundraiser" at the Kentucky Derby, as well as an event at the Marriott Key West Beachside hotel. Singletary denied attending a fundraiser in Key West, and both women declined to comment on payments received shortly after the Kentucky Derby.
A consultant for Artiles who is not a model, David Custin, refused to offer his thoughts on the allocation of resources and responded forcefully to requests for comment. "You don't have a leg to stand on to be asking these questions. There's nothing there," said Custin.
Artiles has been under scrutiny since accosting several lawmakers with racial slurs in an act that forced him to resign from his political office. During a discussion with two Democratic colleagues at a Florida bar, Artiles suggested the Senate's president was only elected through the help of other black lawmakers, and reportedly used a derivative of the N-word to describe his black co-workers.
The two lawmakers who filed a formal complaint about Artiles' behavior, Sen. Perry Thurston and Sen. Audrey Gibson, were taken aback by his behavior. Sen. Gibson called it the, “most disrespect I’ve ever encountered.”
