GAINESVILLE — New details emerged Friday in the criminal case against a felon accused in between stints in prison of submitting false signatures on a petition supporting a 2022 Florida recreational marijuana initiative.
Colton Edward Brady, 34, of Fayetteville, Georgia, had been hired to collect signatures of registered voters for the petition by a Tallahassee-based political committee, Sensible Florida Inc. The effort — which would have legalized possession of up to one ounce of marijuana — was separate from the campaign that will put the question about recreational marijuana use on the ballot in November.
Brady has prior felony convictions over the past 14 years for marijuana possession, theft and burglary. As a felon who still owes unpaid court fines, Brady couldn’t add his own name to the effort because he isn’t allowed to vote under Florida law.
Brady, who was released on bond Friday, could not be reached because numbers listed for him were disconnected or did not have voicemails set up. Michael Minardi, chairman of Sensible Florida, did not return voicemail messages to discuss Brady’s employment.
The Florida Supreme Court blocked the 2022 initiative, so it never went to voters.
Smart & Safe Florida, the group behind Amendment 3, the legalization effort on November’s ballot, issued this statement on Friday: “It was brought to our attention that today, an individual was arrested in Georgia for submitting illegitimate signatures in support of a different marijuana ballot measure last year. That initiative was completely separate and independent from Amendment 3 and these signatures were not related to Amendment 3. This individual was never paid by Smart & Safe Florida nor do we have any record of affiliation with him. Our campaign remains committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and transparency in all our efforts.”
Brady worked on the marijuana campaign after he was released from state prison in October 2020 and before he was sent back to prison in June 2023 for violating parole after he was accused of stealing a Toyota Camry belonging to his mother, Dana Mabrey, 54, of Tallahassee, according to court records.
Mabrey, his mother, was also implicated in the petition fraud scheme, according to state records. Mabrey worked as a signature-gatherer and submitted names that couldn’t be verified, the records said. Mabrey, who could not be reached because two phone numbers listed for her were disconnected, has not been arrested or charged with any crime.
Colton Edward Brady, 34, of Fayetteville, Georgia, is seen in this undated booking photo from the Florida Department of Corrections. Brady is accused of submitting false signatures on a petition supporting the 2022 Florida recreational marijuana initiative that never made it to a ballot. (Florida Department of Corrections/Fresh Take Florida)
Brady was released from prison again in June this year. Investigators in the petition fraud case interviewed him in May when he was still behind bars.
Brady told Florida investigators he was jealous of other petition gatherers because he wasn’t collecting as many signatures supporting the marijuana initiative, despite approaching people across the Tallahassee area at grocery stores, retail stores and Florida State University’s campus, according to newly available court records in the case.
Brady said he learned during training for signature gatherers how to use publicly available information to look up names and details of voters in Leon County, and fraudulently submitted their information on the marijuana petitions, the court records said.
In at least one case in February 2022, he submitted the name of a voter — John Marcus Dodson, 37, of Tallahassee — who had died in September 2020. The county’s elections office noticed the disparity when it sought to confirm in November that all the signatures were those of authentic registered voters. His mother, Mabrey, also submitted Dodson’s name on a petition, the court records said.
At least three others confirmed they never signed the petitions that Brady submitted. “No way,” one of them, Marissa Jefferson, 40, of Tallahassee told investigators.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which announced Brady’s arrest Thursday, said Brady submitted 66 names and signatures in Leon County for the marijuana initiative, and 49 were rejected as invalid. Those were far worse rejection rates than the 3.5% of rejected signatures from other workers on the campaign, the state said.
Brady was arrested in Georgia on Sept. 5, and faces eight felony counts for petition fraud, including use of a dead person’s information, submitting false voter registration information and use of personal identification information and false swearing, according to court records.
State police have recently approached Florida voters at home to verify their signatures for Amendment 4, a similar initiative that would protect abortion rights if approved. Gov. Ron DeSantis defended police actions in a Lake City news conference earlier this week.
“Our tolerance for voter fraud in the state of Florida is zero,” DeSantis said. “That’s the only thing you can do is to have zero tolerance, and we want everybody to participate, but we can’t be in a situation where people are trying to short circuit the process by submitting invalid petitions.”
DeSantis also criticized the marijuana amendment for not restricting using marijuana in public and allowing what he called “a weed cartel that is going to benefit a handful of incumbent companies.”
The law enforcement agency said it has charged 17 people with petition fraud of over 34,000 invalidated petitions.
This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at aidanbush@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.
This article was corrected to indicate that the criminal case announced this week is connected to the 2022 marijuana initiative in Florida, not the Amendment 3 initiative that will be on November’s ballot.