Bosses binged on meals, concerts, cigars, GOP ex-aide says

Long before criminal investigations shook the Republican Party of Florida, office manager Susan Wright noticed a problem, she says: Higher-ups were spending party money to help themselves instead of the GOP.

There were the thousands of dollars dropped in Las Vegas restaurants, a casino resort and a Wayne Newton concert.

She says she saw thousands more in questionable expenses for trips and swank accommodations in Boston, Beverly Hills and Miami.

And she says she was among the first Republican staffers to voice concerns about a $200,000 party contract with a shell company called Victory Strategies, which is now at the center of the fraud and theft charges against former Chairman Jim Greer, who has pleaded not guilty.

Wright, 57, didn't know all the details, but fretted to her supervisors and co-workers that the party was running out of money and couldn't afford it all.

``I was told to keep my mouth shut,'' she said.

Wright didn't. So, she says, she was fired.

Now a witness in the state criminal case against Greer, Wright is breaking months of public silence to detail for The St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald the problems she saw at party headquarters under Greer and his right-hand man, Delmar Johnson, who is avoiding jail time in return for testifying against Greer.

GREER RESPONSE

Greer's attorney says he's innocent and is being set up by vengeful party leaders reneging on a $124,000 severance agreement.

Wright had access to expense reports, contracts, pay information and vacation time for nearly every party worker. She saw first hand the internal party documents detailing the charges, from the $1,290 at The Palazzo Las Vegas Resort Hotel Casino to the nearly $5,000 that Jim and wife Lisa Greer spent for a getaway in exclusive Fisher Island.

``Five-thousand friggin' dollars!'' she exclaimed when she asked about the purpose of the expense.

She says she never got an answer, only demands and insinuations that she be silent.

The spending came to light this spring when The Times/Herald and other media obtained Republican leaders' party-issued American Express cards. But Wright says Greer and Johnson also frequently used their personal credit cards for expenses, such as the $243 in Wayne Newton Before I Go performance tickets, that were reimbursed by the party.

Investigative documents and some top Republicans confirm that Wright was among the first insiders to raise red flags about all the spending.

Weeks after she was fired in January, Wright was flown to West Palm Beach by the U.S. Attorney's Office to tell her story to a federal prosecutor, an FBI agent and an Internal Revenue Service official.

Wright was interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in March.

Wright's observations not only helped investigators uncover alleged wrongdoing, they reveal a deep level of dysfunction in a political party that fostered a sense of entitlement among some top-ranking members and fear among the rank and file.

$100 DINNERS

Wright started working for the Republican Party of Florida in September 2007, nine months after Gov. Charlie Crist made Greer chairman.

By the middle of 2009, Wright said, the party was so ``broke'' that it paid some of its bills with staffers' credit cards. Known in budgeting circles as using non-recurring money to fund recurring expenses, that type of financial practice is decried year after year by Republican lawmakers just up the hill in the state Capitol.

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