Lennar head honcho Stuart Miller won’t face punishment for allegedly dropping $125,000 in illegal political contributions to committees supporting Republican candidates.
The Federal Elections Commission recently dismissed complaints that Miller allegedly violated federal election law by using Tread Standard, a Delaware-based LLC he controlled, to make the donations and prevent his identity from being disclosed in campaign finance reports, Florida Bulldog reported.
As a result, Miller, executive chairman and co-CEO of Lennar, a Miami-based national homebuilder, won’t have to pay any fines for his alleged transgressions.
Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group, filed the complaint that alleged Miller funneled $100,000 to a political action committee backing NFL Hall of Famer Herschel Walker’s failed run for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat in 2022, as well as $25,000 during the same election cycle to a separate PAC supporting Miami Congressman Carlos Gimenez.
The complaint alleged that Miller illegally used Tread Standard as a straw donor to hide the fact he was the true donor, and the company solely existed to make state and federal campaign contributions.
The FEC sided with Miller’s lawyers, who argued that their client did not intentionally seek to circumvent federal disclosure requirements and that the contributions in Tread Standard’s name were “reporting attribution errors,” federal documents state. Miller’s legal team also said that he received bad advice from a previous attorney, Brian Bilzin, founder of Miami law firm Bilzin Sumberg.
Lennar is among the country’s most prolific homebuilders. Last month, the firm acquired three residential development sites in southwest Miami-Dade County. Lennar paid $25 million to Century Homebuilders Group, a Coral Gables-based national homebuilder founded by the late Segio Pino, who committed suicide last year when federal agents attempted to arrest him a murder-for-hire plot against his estranged widow, Tatiana Pino. Totaling 25 acres, the three sites are approved for a total of 57 single-family homes, 117 townhomes and 27 duplexes.
— Francisco Alvarado