Police documents released this week in the Jim Greer alleged fraud case make the Republican Party of Florida out to be a fairly ugly, sexist place to work.
A while back, we noted the allegation that Greer became jealous of Meredith O’Rourke, a top fundraiser for Gov. Charlie Crist, after Greer became FL GOP chair in 2007 and saw she O’Rourke making $30,000 per month in fundraising fees. Greer allegedly tried to convince her to give him a share of her profits, and, when she refused, he cut off her access to Crist.
The new documents include a police summary of investigators’ interview with O’Rourke in which she describes Greer making “inappropriate sexually related comments in her presence.”
Read on (emphasis ours):
O’Rourke gave an example of being in a group including Greer, wherein Greer made the comment that if he gave her (O’Rourke) a contract, she’d have an orgasm and if he gave her a credit card contract, she’d have two orgasms. O’Rourke claimed that Howard Gruverman and Scott Rothstein [ed. note: Yep, that’s this Scott Rothstein] were present when the comment was made. O’Rourke stated that she also observed inappropriate sexual comments on blogs that she suspected Greer wrote as she observed grammatical errors in the blogs that she knew Greer to make regularly.
O’Rourke also recalled Greer’s regular use of “men’s only” meetings to reward major donors:
O’Rourke stated that she was aware of Greer having “men only” meetings. As an example, O’Rourke recalled a “Thank You Trip” that Greer planned for the major donors to Governor Crist’s “Yes on 1” amendment dealing with property taxes. As a thank you to major donors, Greer took several major donors on a trip to the Bahamas. No female staffers were allowed to go on the trip although Delmar Johnson and Greer’s travel aide, Jeremy Collins went on the trip. O’Rourke also recalled speaking to a female lobbyist friend, Beth Kigel who relayed to her of a “men’s only” meeting at the Governor’s Club in Tallahassee, Florida wherein Greer and Governor Crist were attempting to solicit major donors for the Governor’s “Yes on 1” initiative. Kigel informed O’Rourke that she was excluded from the meeting while one of her clients, a male client, was allowed in to the meeting.
As we noted yesterday, Crist has denied there were prostitutes on that trip to the Bahamas.
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