Someone finally took him up on his dare.
Miami-Dade School Board Member and congressional candidate Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo has told everyone repeatedly that he will not 
disclose his client list for his lobbying firm, Capitol Gains, because he doesn’t have to. See? He put the company in his wife’s name so he could get out of disclosure laws that would require him — as both a school board member and a congressional candidate — to make public any client from which he makes 5% or more of his income.
He even went so far as to practically dare anyone who thinks he’s being sneaky — and there are a lot of us — to “file a complaint.”
Now, the Florida Democratic Party has taken him up on that challenge. Maybe it is just a coincidence that it is on the same day that Congressman Joe Garcia, who Curbelo will face in November, was in unflattering headlines about a narrowing federal investigation into a Republican ringer allegedly planted by his 2010 campaign.
Florida Dems Chairwoman Allison Tant asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday to investigate Curbelo for failing to publicly disclose the clients of his lobbying firm and, if the investigation leads there, to look at possible criminal action.
Her letter to Jack Smith, chief of the DOJ’s public integrity sectioncenters around the fact that Curbelo seems to contradict himself — or even lie — on forms in which he either identifies himself as principal, owner or president of Capitol Gains.
Well, everyone knows he’s just an employee. His wife is the owner, principal and president. Wink, wink.
Read related story: Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt
“Mr. Curbelo appears to have knowingly and willfully falsified and failed to report information required under the EIGA (Ethics in Government Act),” Tant wrote in her complaint, offering the following documents as evidence:
- Curbelo reported his wife as owner of Capitol Gains on his federal financial disclosures, though in interviews he claimed she had not worked at the firm since 2009. (In reality, he said she had not worked since 2009. Ladra is not sure Cecilia Curbelo ever worked at the firm).
- Curbelo did not report an ownership interest, directorship or officer position with Capitol Gains, a company he founded, on his federal financial disclosure.
- In disclosing his occupation and employer to federal campaign committees, Curbelo listed himself as “owner,” “President,” and “principal” of Capitol Gains.
- If Curbelo were owner of Capitol Gains, he would be required to identify any clients of the firm for which he personally performed services in 2012 or 2013 that generated fees for the firm in excess of $5,000.
“The latter violation is particularly significant. One of the fundamental purposes of the EIGA is to let the public know who a candidate’s clients are, so that the electorate can judge whether any of the candidate’s positions may be influenced by client interests,” Tant writes. Duh!
“For someone who obviously runs a lobbying shop and has said he is the owner of the company, to refuse to disclose his clients defeats an important objective of the law and frustrates the public interest that provision of the law sees to promote.”
What she said. Hasn’t Ladra been barking about this for weeks?
Call it an oops moment. Because what these public documents really prove is that Curbelo is, indeed, the owner, president and principal of Capitol 
Gains. In theory and in practice. It is only on paper that he is not. And why is that? Well, Ladra — who, by the way, was the first to expose this little convenient loophole of his back in June and the first to predict this would haunt him win or lose Aug. 26 — suspects that he did it precisely so he did not have to disclose his clients. The very next year, after the transfer of ownership to his wife, he ran for school board.
Read related story: Win or lose, Carlos Curbelo hidden biz will haunt him
If Curbelo continued to run and manage Capitol Gains, as we all know he did and does and which Curbelo himself admits on these forms, the congressional candidate may have violated a federal ethics law that is designed particularly so that we know who our electeds work for and get their paychecks from, is basically what Tant is saying in her letter.
By the way, the state disclosure laws for Form 6 state that he must disclose the clients of any business he has a direct or indirect ownership of. And you can’t get more direct than your wife. The mother of your children. The person who sleeps next to you every night. Hey, that means Ladra may get a chance to file a complaint yet.
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