Red lights, green cash: How a Florida legislator boosted school bus cameras and benefited her family

Personal connections, aggressive lobbying and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions fueled the rapid rise of an obscure school bus camera vendor, BusPatrol, which quickly became a major player in a niche industry that didn’t exist in Florida until last year.

That success represented a remarkable turnaround for a company with a troubled history of allegations that it values revenue over public safety and opportunity over ethics.

BusPatrol’s reversal in fortunes, already evident in other states, echoes the comeback of Florida state Rep. Vicki Lopez, once a down-and-out Lee County commissioner, with whom BusPatrol is inextricably linked.

Last year, Lopez co-sponsored a bill allowing cameras on school buses statewide. Within months, her family had cashed in on the new industry through a web of connections built with BusPatrol, which stands to make millions from traffic tickets.

A Tributary investigation found a familiar pattern between Lopez and BusPatrol — one of overlapping personal, professional, and political interests – that evokes past allegations of ethical impropriety that have dogged both.

But such baggage is often no barrier to success in Florida, which has toothless and rarely enforced ethics laws that experts say corporate interests can easily exploit.

2023 marked Lopez’s first year as a newly elected Miami Republican, 30 years after allegations of impropriety had forced her out of public office. Within months of taking her seat in Tallahassee, she co-sponsored House Bill 741, allowing school districts to use cameras to ticket drivers who ran buses’ stop signs.

Less than three months after the new law took effect, her son, Donny Wolfe III, ended his brief tenure as the Miami mayor’s chief of staff to become BusPatrol’s new VP of government relations.

The company then hired Lopez’s former stepson and Wolfe’s former stepbrother, Adrian Lukis, as a lobbyist.

In the next legislative session, Lopez voted for a bill that allowed companies like BusPatrol to earn money for every citation issued. She never disclosed that her vote could benefit a company that had her son on the payroll, something two ethics experts said was required by law. A Lopez spokesperson said the Florida House general counsel told her she didn’t have a conflict of interest.

As the Legislature built the framework for this new industry and two of Florida’s largest school districts took advantage of the new law, BusPatrol poured $775,000 into legislators’ and local politicians’ coffers.

This business model has faced scrutiny in other states where drivers have said the company’s cameras have led to erroneous tickets and government watchdogs have noted the revolving door between BusPatrol and officials who’ve helped secure the company’s success.

BusPatrol did not respond to the Tributary’s requests for an interview. 

Lopez declined to grant The Tributary an interview. Sarah Bascom, a communications consultant, forwarded a statement from Lopez’s campaign advisor.

“We would encourage you to report the whole truth instead of limiting the truth to create a salacious story with no factual basis,” wrote Pablo Diaz on behalf of the Lopez campaign.

Diaz said Lopez co-sponsored more than 75 House bills in 2023. He also said Lopez’s son, Wolfe, “is a professional adult” who got his job at BusPatrol “under his own merits.” He said Lopez “had nothing to do with that and has no influence over any company decisions or her adult son who has a self-directed career and has no business dealings with his mother.”

Wolfe did not respond to the Tributary’s repeated requests for an interview, and he did not answer detailed questions provided in writing. Lopez’s only direct comments to The Tributary came in response to records requests.

In response to records requests, Lopez denied having any records of communications with fellow lawmakers about BusPatrol or her son, and she denied having any records of meetings related to the company or the legislation she co-sponsored. 

The Tributary made identical requests to all 160 Florida lawmakers, and in response, one representative shared text messages that show Lopez reached out to her to introduce her son to school officials in Duval County, where BusPatrol was seeking business.

Less than a week after her son announced his new job, Lopez texted fellow Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville). She appealed to Nixon by highlighting her past votes where she had crossed party lines.

Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via AP

DPD

“I have voted against my caucus and always reach across the aisle to work with members in the minority party,” Lopez wrote after Nixon expressed reservations about the request. “I thought you might be supportive of child safety and thought you might be able to help.”

When the Tributary showed Lopez the records obtained from Nixon and asked why she did not provide them under the Tributary’s public records request, Lopez said that it was “personal and had nothing to do with legislation or any official business.”

“My son asked me if I knew anyone in Jacksonville, and I was simply making a personal introduction to Angie Nixon. That’s the extent of my interaction,” she said in an emailed response to the Tributary.

Lopez’s ex-husband, Sylvester Lukis, who now works as a senior partner at heavyweight lobbying firm Ballard Partners, denied his ex-wife tried to benefit him, his firm or the younger Lukis.

“I have nothing to do with her,” he said. Lukis and Lopez divorced 10 years ago.

Adrian Lukis, his son and BusPatrol’s lobbyist, didn’t return the Tributary’s request for comment. The elder Lukis said that it is absurd to insinuate “she somehow wanted to benefit her ex-stepson.”

Adrian Lukis previously served as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff before becoming a lobbyist. DeSantis appointed his wife last year to the state ethics commission that watchguards the Legislature and other elected officials.

Sylvester Lukis said after his and Lopez’s contentious divorce, he and Adrian stopped having anything to do with Lopez. Adrian, he said, does keep in touch with Lopez’s son, BusPatrol’s head of government relations, a job that often oversees lobbying efforts.

This isn’t the first time Lopez has faced allegations of using a public office to benefit those close to her.

In 1995, Lopez was indicted on 10 counts, including bribery and honest services fraud, for failing to disclose how her votes as a county commissioner could have benefited a secret lover’s lobbying clients. She went on to marry, and later divorce, that lobbyist — Sylvester Lukis.

Lopez served 15 months in federal prison for honest services fraud until President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence. Later, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the scope of honest services fraud, and in 2011, a court vacated her conviction.

The BusPatrol Revenue Machine

BusPatrol’s business model has proven highly lucrative—largely built on the revenue generated from citations issued by its cameras. In Florida and beyond, the company has positioned itself as a leader in school bus safety, but questions persist about whether its primary focus is public safety or profit.

AP

In Miami-Dade, the company’s cameras led to 11,500 citations in the first two weeks. BusPatrol keeps 70% of the revenue from every $200 citation issued. At that rate, BusPatrol stands to make about $3.2 million a month in revenue.

In Hillsborough County, the company estimated its cameras led to 2,500 to 3,000 citations in the first week. The company gets $225 a month for each of the about 840 school buses equipped with cameras. It also receives $65 for every fine issued.

If the county continues issuing about 3,000 citations a week, the company stands to make about a million dollars a month in Hillsborough.

BusPatrol has repeatedly faced allegations that local governments use its cameras to wrongfully and excessively issue citations.

The company faces a federal class-action complaint in New York for issuing citations without evidence. News reports in New York, Massachusetts and Pittsburgh have also reported that drivers were fined despite not breaking the law. 

Pittsburgh-based television station WPXI reported last year that the station had received complaints from viewers that BusPatrol’s cameras were wrongfully citing people with $300 penalties. 

In New York, after an appellate supreme court decision that BusPatrol’s cameras provided “insufficient evidence”, about 8,000 tickets in Suffolk County were dismissed. The state changed its bus camera law, and Suffolk County created a more extensive process to review citations from BusPatrol’s cameras.

Last month, Newsday reported Suffolk County and the Town of Hempstead in New York issued  nearly 250,000 tickets last year. That means in one year, one citation was given for every nine residents of the area. In two years, BusPatrol made more than $20 million off of those tickets in Hempstead and Suffolk County.

Suffolk County’s comptroller issued a report in June about BusPatrol’s operation. “When you get under the hood you see how inefficient and chaotic the implementation truly was,” he told Newsday. The report suggested the county strengthen its ethics laws to prevent officials from going on to work for companies like BusPatrol. 

It also found that of about 200,000 citations it looked at, about 1,600 were dismissed when the drivers contested them. However, the report also said the data suggested tickets had “improved driving behavior around school bus stops in Suffolk County.”

In Suffolk County, BusPatrol similarly hired a legislator’s son as a lobbyist, along with the elected prosecutor, his chief of staff, a state senator, a county lawmaker and other top county officials as outside counsel, lobbyists and top executives, according to an investigation by Newsday.

One of those former Suffolk County officials lobbied Miami-Dade and Hillsborough on behalf of BusPatrol, according to county records.

Using Public Influence to Support BusPatrol

Days after Lopez’s son joined BusPatrol, Lopez texted Rep. Nixon, lobbying for her son to be introduced to Duval County school officials in the hopes of landing a new contract for the company.

“Do you happen to know any of the Duval School Board members or the administration?” Lopez texted Nixon last October on behalf of her son who had just joined BusPatrol. “He is the VP of Government Relations and is trying to expand their pilot in Duval.”

BusPatrol, however, never had a pilot program in Duval. When the Tributary reached out to Duval County Public Schools, a spokesperson said that there was no pilot program with the company and that the school district would send BusPatrol a cease-and-desist letter.  

BusPatrol still mentions a non-existent Duval pilot program on its website, something the company pushed as it was lobbying lawmakers to approve bills BusPatrol had a pilot program with Brevard and Santa Rosa school districts around two years ago. Neither manifested into a contract. 

Experts say that Lopez is allowed to vote in a way that benefits her family. Legislators are only expected to abstain from votes that benefit them alone, experts said. Her son would not count.

Those experts, Ben Wilcox of Integrity Florida and University of Florida professor Beth Rosenson, said she still needed to disclose that her son’s employer benefited.

Bascom said Lopez “has been advised by [the] House general counsel that there is no conflict” but did not say when this advice was given. After this story published, Lopez told the Miami Herald editorial board she didn’t reach out to the general counsel until after The Tributary contacted her.

While the House never published an opinion about Lopez’s case, previous opinions from the House’s lawyers show they regularly create exceptions to disclosure requirements. In one 2017 opinion, they ruled a legislator could vote on a bill affecting nursing homes despite owning a legal practice serving nursing homes since the financial impact was “speculative.”

The legislature determines its own ethics standards and “purposefully sets a very high bar for a conflict of interest”, Wilcox said. “… For there to be a conflict of interest according to the legislative rules, a bill that she [Lopez] voted on … would have to directly benefit her somehow and really benefit no one else.”

Love, Lies, and Lee County: Rep. Vicki Lopez’s Past

In the early 1990s, as a Lee County Commission candidate and later as an elected commissioner, according to court records and news reports at the time, Lopez had relationships with two lobbyists — Bruce Strayhorn and Sylvester Lukis, both of whom were actively lobbying the commission.

Strayhorn represented garbage handler Waste Management, which opposed the building of a new incinerator.

Court records show that during her relationship with Strayhorn, Lopez actively campaigned against the construction of a new incinerator.  After meeting Lukis, a lobbyist representing Goldman Sachs and an incinerator builder, prosecutors later told a jury,, she reversed her stance on the incinerator. She also introduced Goldman Sachs representatives to other Lee County commissioners.

Lukis wired over $5,000 to a friend of Lopez’s with instructions to pass the cash over to Lopez. Lukis and Lopez argued in court that the money was for long-distance phone bills and costs for their shared apartment, not a bribe.

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According to court records, Lopez and Lukis split in 1992. When Lopez revived a relationship with Strayhorn, Lukis hired a private investigator. That investigator found the now-divorced Strayhorn was dating both Lopez and another woman, a married mother and an anti-incinerator candidate for the Lee County Commission.

Lopez demanded Strayhorn push his mistress out of the commission race, according to court records. When the candidate refused, Lopez went public with a video of Strayhorn and the candidate kissing, and the candidate lost.

Three years later, the prosecution said the videotape was proof Lopez prioritized Lukis and his clients’ interests over the public’s. Prosecutors also pointed to the lies she told the public about her affairs.

Lopez argued her relationships with Strayhorn and Lukis were personal and not matters of public concern, even if both lobbyists were hired to influence her vote. The money she received was given out of love, she argued.

Her argument won over the jury, mostly. She was cleared of her bribery charges but was convicted of using the mail to defraud citizens by depriving them of her honest services. Lopez’s conviction was overturned in 2011 after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling declared honest services fraud charges could only apply in cases of bribery or kickbacks.

Vicki Lopez Faces Another Investigation

At that time in 2011, Lopez was a volunteer consultant for Miami-based nonprofit Girls Advocacy Project, which provided services for girls in the juvenile justice system. She had previously served as the organization’s executive director. 

That’s when the state Department of Juvenile Justice’s inspector general issued a report that said Lopez, as a pro bono consultant, had spent contract revenue on personal expenses.

State investigators said Lopez used money earmarked for girls in the juvenile system for meals at a steakhouse, a sushi restaurant and a raw bar. She also bought gifts for friends and lawmakers, doughnuts, tickets to a film festival and even flowers, the investigators said. She spent taxpayer dollars on cell phone roaming charges in Europe, gift cards, and paying staffers’ parking tickets.

Investigators also said Lopez had falsified records to justify being paid for services that weren’t rendered, including an invoice for $10,600 for office furniture and computer equipment from DW Consulting, a company run by her son and her then-husband. 

Lopez’s son, Wolfe, filed to dissolve the company, which had been headquartered in his parents’ three-bedroom apartment, days after a Miami Herald investigation was published.

The Department of Juvenile Justice’s inspector general said at least $111,000 meant to provide services for delinquent girls had been misused. 

The Department of Financial Services’ Office of Fiscal Integrity also issued a two-page report that found “no criminal activity” but determined the nonprofit’s contract included “obvious discrepancies,” the Herald reported at the time. That investigation said the state should try to make the nonprofit pay back its money.

Lopez disputed these findings and told the state the report was “premature” and contained “errors and erroneous assumptions as well as omissions.”   

She said the nonprofit’s contract with the juvenile justice department had been for a fixed lump sum and did not require Girls Advocacy Project to receive approval for any of its expenses. 

She also suggested the complaint that initiated the investigation was filed “to further a personal vendetta against GAP”.

The Herald reported that the juvenile justice secretary was a close friend of Lopez’s, and the agency head pushed out the inspector general responsible for the investigation. 

Then-Gov. Rick Scott’s chief inspector general claimed the investigation had been “sloppy” and decided not to investigate further.

During her 2022 election run, Lopez faced little scrutiny, outside of passing mentions about her past. She went on to become her district’s first Republican legislator in nearly two decades.

When Lopez signed on to co-sponsor an obscure bill “relating to photographic enforcement of school bus safety,” it didn’t raise suspicions.

BusPatrol’s Legislative Campaign

HB 741 wasn’t BusPatrol’s first attempt to authorize bus cameras in Florida.

BusPatrol first contributed $50,000 to a political committee in November 2021, just after members of the House and Senate filed the first bills to authorize cameras on the stop arms of school buses. After the bills failed, BusPatrol doubled down on campaign contributions and lobbying.

In Florida, BusPatrol has spent between $680,000 and $1.4 million lobbying the legislative and executive branches in the past four years.

It has also used a political committee, A Stronger Florida, as a passthrough for all of BusPatrol’s donations to Florida politicians. The committee is run by the operations director at one of BusPatrol’s lobbying firms, Rubin, Turnbull and Associates, which didn’t return requests for comment.

In Florida, campaign donors face limits on how much they can directly give to candidates, but no limits on giving to political committees, which are free to coordinate with the candidates themselves. In some cases, lobbying firms will run their own political committees to aid their lobbying efforts.

Bangor Fire Department

Using a political committee makes it impossible to be 100% certain about which politicians specifically benefited from BusPatrol’s contributions. But The Tributary’s analysis found that A Stronger Florida, while not exclusively serving BusPatrol, made donations to politicians within days of large contributions from BusPatrol.

After the 2022 bills failed, BusPatrol significantly increased its contributions and lobbying. Since February last year, BusPatrol has contributed $725,000 to A Stronger Florida.

On a Friday in February 2023, Rep. Kiyan Michael (R-Jacksonville) filed the first bill to authorize cameras for school bus stop signs. By the following Monday, A Stronger Florida had transferred $5,000 to Michael’s political committee.  

That same day, A Stronger Florida contributed $7,500 to a political committee run by Sen. Danny Burgess (R-Zephyrhills). The next day, Burgess filed a companion bill in the Florida Senate.

Sen. Burgess and Rep. Michael did not respond to the Tributary’s requests for interviews on their campaign finances. 

In May, the bill passed by a vote of 108 to 6 in the House and 35 to 5 in the Senate.

In the month after the bill was signed by Gov. DeSantis, A Stronger Florida donated to political committees supporting at least three of the bill’s cosponsors: Reps. Juan Carlos Porras, Carolina Amesty and Lopez. Since 2023, Lopez and her political committee have received $11,000 from A Stronger Florida.

Diaz, Lopez’s campaign advisor, said in his written statement that A Stronger Florida “has no ties to Rep. Lopez or her campaign,” and she “cannot answer questions regarding the committee’s donors or contributions.”

A Stronger Florida also contributed to committees run by four of the Miami Dade School Board’s nine members, one of only two Florida counties with a BusPatrol contract. 

It also gave $267,500 to the Republican Party of Florida and another $150,000 to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

BusPatrol gave an extra $150,000 to the committee earlier this month. The committee has not yet reported how it has spent all of that money.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed a second bill, this time expanding BusPatrol’s ability to make money from citations. When the bill went to the House, Lopez voted for it.

It authorized school bus cameras for private and charter schools and allowed revenue-sharing through the fines collected from traffic violations recorded through the detectors. This expanded model could bring in millions in revenue for BusPatrol.  

This year marks the first election since BusPatrol ramped up its donations.

BusPatrol’s Hidden Past

BusPatrol has portrayed itself as a fast-rising company, securing contracts with school districts across 16 states.

In 2017, a company called Force Multiplier Solutions Canada Inc. changed its name in Canada to BusPatrol Inc. In the U.S., Force Multiplier Solutions’ leaders formed new entities across the country bearing the name BusPatrol.

BusPatrol has claimed it has no connections to Force Multiplier Solutions and has tried to distance itself from that name.

In 2018, Force Multiplier Solutions CEO Robert Leonard was convicted in a corruption scandal that took down multiple public officials and resulted in the closure of a county agency. A federal prosecutor told the judge this was “likely the largest domestic public corruption case in history.”

Leonard pleaded guilty to paying more than $3.5 million in bribes  to the agency’s former superintendent and a Dallas city councilmember. 

After the conviction, another investigation, this time by a Maryland county’s inspector general, criticized the Montgomery County school district for transferring a contract from Force Multiplier Solutions to the newly named BusPatrol.

“While BusPatrol and FMS may technically be different corporate entities, they remain at the same address, with the same telephone number, and using the same equipment on the same contracts,” the 2019 report said. “The president of FMS is now the president of BusPatrol. … The current CEO of BusPatrol is listed in Canadian legal documents as being a Co-Director of Force Multiplier Solutions Canada.”

BusPatrol’s founder and former president, David Poirier, who has since left BusPatrol, told the Tributary he has no ownership interest in the company and declined interview requests.

When a Maryland state delegate raised these concerns last year, BusPatrol denied any connections to  Force Multiplier Solutions or its convicted CEO. The company even went so far as to say BusPatrol’s former CEO, Jean Souliere, “was never … related to FMS in any way,” even though he had served as a director on  Force Multiplier Solutions’s board.

Souliere did not respond to a request for comment.

Florida Legislature Evades Ethics, Records Rules

Because Lopez’s son’s work overlaps with public policy — both as the Miami mayor’s former chief of staff and his newer role at BusPatrol — any messages related to those jobs should be public, but she denied having any communications, including with her son, that mention “BusPatrol” or her son’s name.

Lopez also said she didn’t have any calendar records with BusPatrol or any of their lobbyists.

Florida’s Constitution requires legislators’ records to be public, but the Legislature has exempted itself from most public records laws. Instead, legislators get to decide for themselves what’s a record of “archival value” and act as the custodian for any records not maintained by the House’s Office of Open Government, according to the House rules.

In addition to setting a different standard when it comes to public records, the Legislature has also set a different ethics standard for itself, according to Caroline Klancke, the executive director of the nonprofit Florida Ethics Institute. Voting disclosure requirements are more robust for local officials than legislators, she said.

A search of the House’s daily journals and a public records request showed that Lopez never disclosed her conflict when she voted on the 2024 bill.

According to a list of penalties recommended by the state ethics commission since its founding, the maximum penalty for not disclosing a voting conflict has been a $4,000 fee.

The lack of real consequences for conflicts of interest could leave the Legislature susceptible to corporate influence, Rosenson said. “When members are dependent on [campaign] donations from companies, that can create an ethics problem and a dependence on those companies.”