Broken trust: How a Clearwater man took $100M from funds for disabled, records say

Drivers pass Big Storm Brewing's taproom in Clearwater, a craft beer business owned by Leo Govoni and his son. Govoni is named in two separate cases that document more than $100 million missing from trust funds for the medically needy. A judge recently froze Govoni's bank accounts and assets at the request of the Florida state attorney's office. [ CHRIS URSO | Times ]

By Christopher O'Donnell

FEATHER SOUND — Like countless others, David Wenk trusted Leo Govoni.

The oncologist met the financial adviser and his son in 2012 at a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game and ended up sharing a 10-year season ticket to a Bucs suite that Govoni bought through one of his companies.

Over several years, the Govonis pitched Wenk on investing in Big Storm Brewing, a fast-growing craft beer and spirits company. After seeing plans for a sleek high-end steakhouse and spirit room in May 2021, Wenk plunked down $3 million from his personal accounts.

It was easy to believe Govoni was a savvy businessperson. He flew friends on his twin-engine private jet to watch the Kentucky Derby from his executive suite at Churchill Downs. He doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to politicians.

But within three years, that carefully curated image of success would fall apart.

In February, Govoni was accused in bankruptcy court records of orchestrating a $100 million loan to his own company from a nonprofit he founded. The money was siphoned from special-needs trust funds set up to pay medical bills for people with profound disabilities, records state.

Then in May, a state court froze Govoni’s bank accounts and assets at the request of state prosecutors who in a civil complaint accused him and business associates of stealing more than $2 million from a second trust fund nonprofit.

To tell this story, the Tampa Bay Times reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, federal and state records and property deeds. Those documents and interviews with associates, former employees, neighbors and politicians show how Govoni lived lavishly for more than a decade while court documents allege he preyed upon a vulnerable population he had pledged to protect.

Govoni has not spoken publicly about the allegations, nor has he been criminally charged. His attorney, Eric Koenig, issued a statement disputing them and has filed court documents stating that the unpaid loan was sanctioned by the president and directors of the nonprofit. Govoni has appealed the court’s injunction freezing his bank accounts, arguing that there has been “no specific finding of wrongdoing.”

In all, more than 1,600 trust funds were either drained or are missing money, according to court records. They belonged to children with Down syndrome and other disabilities, people no longer able to work because of medical conditions and victims of road accidents who need lifelong expensive medical care.

“It’s a gut-wrenching story first for the victims and also knowing the people closest to him may have woken up and been blindsided by someone they trusted,” said former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, a onetime Govoni associate.

No oversight

Govoni, 65, wasn’t a high roller when he moved into his Feather Sound neighborhood in Clearwater in 1990.

He and his wife, a college professor, bought a modest home for $140,000. He was a middling financial adviser who worked on the side at a clothing store in the International Mall. He rarely sold enough suits to earn a sales bonus at his second job, neighbors said. He kept a low profile and seldom gave to political campaigns.

There were already concerns about how he handled other people’s money. In 1991, the state Department of Banking and Finance denied his application to register as an investment adviser for a new finance firm. State regulators alleged that Govoni made 51 transactions without a client’s permission and failed to disclose more than half a dozen customer complaints while working at Smith Barney.

But in a recommended order, a hearing officer found the evidence insufficient to support the state’s allegations and the denial was overturned.

In 2000, Govoni founded a nonprofit called the Center for Special Needs Trust Administration. He grew the Clearwater-based organization into one of the nation’s largest administrators of special-needs trusts with close to 2,000 beneficiaries from almost every state.

The center catered to people with severe disabilities who received payouts from personal injury lawsuits. Putting the money in a trust meant they stayed eligible for benefits like Medicaid.

Despite the large sums that trust fund administrators oversee, there is little state or federal oversight, said Stephen Dale, president of the Alliance of Pooled Trusts, a Texas group focused on setting standards for the industry.

“This is an unregulated industry,” he said.

Those with trusts at the center Govoni founded included Sarah Schlosser, who was 10 weeks pregnant in 2000 when the car she was riding in hit a parked tractor-trailer at 60 mph. Six months later, while still in a medical coma, Schlosser gave birth.

The accident left the new mother profoundly disabled. Her family in Fort Myers battled in the courts for three years until Schlosser was awarded a settlement and a monthly annuity to pay for future medical care.

Govoni stepped down as president of the nonprofit in May 2009, records show. Just one month later, it approved a $2.5 million line of credit to the Boston Finance Group, a company Govoni had recently set up.

In the fall of that year, the nonprofit also transferred ownership of four properties to Broadleaf Property Management, another newly established Govoni company. The homes, which property appraiser records show were then worth a combined $642,000, were deeded to Broadleaf for $400.

Though no longer president of the center, Govoni maintained control of its business operations, court records state. Companies he owned had contracts to run its payroll, technology, human resources and accounting.

As part of those contracts, several employees of Govoni’s other companies worked on-site at the center. One of those workers, Tracey Gregory, had “full access and control” over the center’s bank accounts and “allowed the purported $100 million in loaned funds to be transferred,” according to a complaint brought by Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee. Govoni also had individuals he trusted in “key positions of authority,” including his daughter, Caitlin Janicki, who earned $138,000 per year as the center’s vice president.

Officially, Todd Belisle was in charge of the trust administration as its new president. But in a 2016 deposition for a contract dispute, he testified that he was second in command to Govoni, who had officially quit seven years earlier.

The loan to Boston Finance had other obvious red flags. The lender and the borrower had the same business address, the loan document shows. But the money kept flowing.

Within a year, Boston Finance’s line of credit was extended to $15 million, then to $30 million, then to $50 million. By 2012, it reached $100 million.

The money was taken from trust funds without the permission of the beneficiaries’ families, court records state.

On annual statements sent to families, the missing money was listed under generic labels like “investments.”

Finance guru

As the center grew, Govoni’s life slowly transformed.

He was appointed in 2006 to Stetson University’s Board of Trustees and the Florida Bar Foundation board of directors in 2009. The following year, he bought the house next door, demolished it and built a pool house, giving his combined properties two pools.

He liked to pose as a finance guru. Always dressed in a business suit and tie at meetings, he acted like he was the smartest person in the room, said David Lillesand, an attorney and national expert on special-needs trusts who met Govoni at events and conferences.

“Leo treated me like I was the idiot and he was the only one who knew anything,” Lillesand said.

He had a temper too, Lillesand said, recalling when Govoni yelled at one of Lillesand’s clients who was considering starting a competitor to the center.

His temperament was questioned in a contract dispute lawsuit filed 10 years ago. Two executives of IT Authorities testified in a deposition that Govoni threatened their employee with a baseball bat. Govoni denied the claims and sued both men for defamation. His case was dismissed because the executives’ depositions were protected by litigation privilege.

Former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Pinellas County Republican, visited Govoni’s office around 2014, he said. Govoni donated about $25,000 to Brandes’ reelection campaign back then, avoiding $1,000 limits on individual contributions by donating from about a dozen of his companies, campaign finance records show.

Brandes recalled seeing several TVs tuned to Bloomberg and other business news networks.

“He seemed to be smart and business savvy,” Brandes said. “I thought he had been on Wall Street, and he had established he was capable of making a large sum of money.”

The perception of Govoni as a successful entrepreneur got extra polish when in 2014 he bought a Cessna 525A jet from a French aviation firm through his Boston Capital Leasing, Federal Aviation Administration records show.

He renamed the company BCL Aviation and hired a Plant City pilot, who remained on staff for seven years. Private jet pilots in Florida make about $114,000 per year, according to ZipRecruiter.

It’s unclear how frequently Govoni used his jet or whether he also chartered it out to private customers. A request was filed with the Federal Aviation Administration to avoid having the aircraft’s transponder tracked by internet services like FlightAware. But federal records obtained by the Times show one international trip from Miami to the Virgin Islands.

Two of Govoni’s neighbors and three former business associates told the Times that Govoni made annual trips by jet to Louisville to attend the Kentucky Derby. Suite prices at Churchill Downs range from $4,000 per person in the Turf Club to $225,000 for Jockey Club suites, according to the Suite Experience Group.

In 2013, Govoni purchased a 24% stake in Big Storm Brewery, then a small independent craft beer business started by two college friends and operating out of a warehouse in Odessa. Co-founder Mike Bishop played football on a team Govoni coached at Countryside High School.

Govoni and his son LJ Govoni became principal owners and rapidly expanded the business. They opened tap rooms in Odessa, Ybor City, Orlando and a 16,000-square-foot flagship brewery and tap room on 49th Street North in Clearwater.

They bought out smaller breweries, including Fat Point Brewing in Punta Gorda and Darwin Brewing in Bradenton. The purchase prices weren’t disclosed.

They also signed deals with the Tampa Bay Lightning to open a Big Storm bar inside Amalie Arena and produced a Bolts-branded beer for the franchise’s 25th anniversary. Sponsorship deals were forged with the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the Clearwater Threshers, too.

In an industry that requires investment in expensive brewing equipment but operates on low profit margins, Big Storm’s growth astonished competitors.

Brandes, who owns a stake in Green Bench Brewing in St. Petersburg, said other local craft breweries assumed Big Storm must have had access to large amounts of capital.

“No one really questioned the source of funds,” Brandes said. “They were managing hundreds of millions of dollars of assets.”

Political player

After donating less than $30,000 to politicians over a 26-year period, Govoni’s political spending rocketed after the trust administration transferred money to his company, records show.

His Boston Holding Co. gave $100,000 to American Crossroads, a political action committee that supports Republican candidates nationally. He made personal donations of $80,000 to a GOP committee that works to increase the party’s majority in the U.S. Senate.

Most of his giving went to Republicans, including former Attorney General Pam Bondi, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Dennis Ross.

Leo Govoni was a strong backer of Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly, seen here, serving as finance co-chairperson on his 2014 campaign.

Govoni was a strong backer of Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly of St. Petersburg, serving as finance co-chairperson on his 2014 campaign. He and his companies gave $147,000 to the candidate, records show, and Boston Finance paid Jolly a quarter of a million dollars for consultancy work, according to his 2014 financial disclosure report.

Jolly hired LJ Govoni in 2014 to work as a legislative aide in his D.C. office. Jolly declined to comment on his business relationship with Govoni but said his thoughts were with the families who lost their life savings.

Govoni’s political spending gave him access to some of the state’s top political figures. He gave $74,600 to Sen. Rick Scott’s campaigns and political committees and, with his wife, co-hosted a 2018 Clearwater fundraiser for Scott.

Scott’s campaign last month said it had donated the contributions from Govoni to a special-needs group, Habitat for Humanity, and to the family of Corey Comperatore, who was killed during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Scott recently wrote to the Social Security Administration seeking answers about the oversight of trust administrations.

The federal agency performs no oversight of such organizations.

Govoni became a director of Enterprise Florida in February 2020 and remained so until the private-public partnership to spur economic development was disbanded in 2023, records show. It put him in the same room as Gov. Ron DeSantis, CEOs and heads of state agencies.

While some on the group’s board were appointed by either the Florida Senate or the governor, Govoni appears to have joined as an investor, according to records.

“Gov. DeSantis was not involved in the selection of this individual, and this individual is no longer associated with Florida Commerce or Select Florida,” said DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern.

Tampa City Council member Bill Carlson, a Democrat, received two dozen contributions of $1,000 each from the Govoni-linked corporations for his 2023 reelection campaign, amounting to more than 17% of his total fundraising.

“We were in a tough race, so I called all of the top political donors in the region to ask them for support,” Carlson said.

Asked if he would consider returning the money to the bankruptcy trustee to share among victims, Carlson said election laws required that he close the campaign with a zero balance.

“There is no legal mechanism to reopen a campaign account after an election,” he said.

Trouble brewing

The business empire that Govoni assembled has collapsed since officials at the center discovered the loan and began investigating the nonprofit’s finances.

Under the terms of the loan, Boston Finance should have repaid the $100 million to the center by Jan. 1, 2017. But even after that date, money continued to flow to Govoni’s company for another three years, court documents state.

The loan came to light because of some paperwork left behind by Govoni’s daughter when she resigned in 2022, according to bankruptcy records.

That same year, Govoni sold his private jet for $3.4 million, according to data in Aircraft Post, a widely used industry online price digest.

The center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. It sent letters to more than 1,500 trust fund holders telling them money was missing from their accounts. Court documents show some trusts should have had balances in excess of $1 million, with the largest being $4.5 million.

Schlosser’s mother, Theresa Schlosser, received a letter. About $180,000 was missing from Sarah’s trust, it stated. There was just $10,000 left, she said.

“It took years to get the settlement for our family,” Theresa Schlosser said. “I trusted them. I do not know how much over the years they took from Sarah.”

In March, a federal judge appointed a trustee to take over the center’s operations.

People who know Govoni reacted with shock and anger.

“He had gained the trust of individuals for an incredibly precious asset,” said Brandes, the former state senator.

Even as the center was trying to unravel its financial mess, Govoni was persuading more families to place their special-needs trusts with the Directed Benefits Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 2013, court records state.

A Florida attorney general’s office investigation found that more than $2 million was missing from the books of the foundation. Prosecutors in their civil complaint accused him of stealing money from people already the victims of debilitating injuries.

One of those was Tampa resident Neon Frazier, who placed her money with the foundation after receiving a settlement from a 2019 road accident that left her with a damaged spine.

After just a few months, the foundation began to repeatedly deny her requests for distributions of her money, including a request to buy a walker, she said.

Now, her trust fund has been frozen, leaving her struggling to afford her medication. She went to the office address in downtown Tampa that was listed by the foundation only to discover no employees worked there, she said.

Frazier only found out about the scandal after hiring an attorney to try to get her money back, she said. A former nurse, she is outraged at how money has been taken from people, including children with disabilities.

“I used to take care of people like that,” Frazier said. “Those people trust them with their money just like I trusted them with my money.”

Karen Fisher was named as one of the defendants in the state’s civil complaint, which details a scheme almost identical to that used at the center.

A single mother, Fisher worked as an assistant for Govoni. To her surprise, she was promoted to vice president and board member of the foundation in June 2023. Govoni had removed his name as an officer of the nonprofit one year earlier, according to state records.

Soon after Fisher’s promotion, the foundation began wiring money to Boston Finance, sending roughly $2.1 million over a two-year period, state prosecutors maintain. In response to a subpoena, the foundation also provided prosecutors with false accounting records that initially hid the missing money.

Facing possible criminal charges, Fisher signed a consent order on July 17, agreeing to a permanent ban from working with special-needs trusts and a $10,000 fine that she won’t have to pay as long as she cooperates with state prosecutors.

In an affidavit, she said she signed checks as instructed by Govoni or by other employees at his request. Govoni controlled all the operations of the foundation and he was wary of being recorded even by his employees, she said. He sometimes insisted she leave her cellphone in her office when they met. He would then place his phone and handgun on a small filing cabinet, her affidavit states.

“I now believe I was placed in this position to be blamed for the wrongdoing of (the foundation) and be held responsible for the checks and other documents that I signed at the instruction of Leo Govoni,” Fisher wrote in her affidavit.

Final reckoning?

Wenk, the oncologist, sued Big Storm in June. The upscale steakhouse his investment was to fund was never built. His suit accused the company of misrepresenting its financial health and questioned whether Big Storm’s rapid growth was fueled by trust fund money.

Wenk would never have invested had he known of “the Govonis’ and Big Storm’s criminal involvement in the theft, embezzlement, and laundering of funds from the Special Needs Trust,” the lawsuit states.

LJ Govoni said Wenk’s claims are “entirely false, baseless and lack any actual foundation” and are intended to embarrass his family. He said he plans to take legal action against Wenk.

“I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have never engaged in any fraudulent activities or wrongdoing as alleged,” LJ Govoni said in a statement provided to the Times. “These accusations are not only unfounded but also defamatory, and I am committed to fighting them vigorously.”

But in a July 11 court hearing on Wenk’s case, Govoni’s attorney Koenig acknowledged that the brewery had received loans from Boston Finance.

Big Storm’s recent collapse has been as spectacular as its rise. In September 2023, the Cape Coral taproom closed with little notice.

Taprooms in Odessa, Orlando, Sarasota and Ybor City shut down soon after the center filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. The brewery owes a combined total of almost $1.9 million in unpaid rent at those four locations, according to lawsuits filed by landlords.

Big Storm pints are now only being poured at the Clearwater taproom, the property that it shares with Govoni’s many companies.

It’s unclear if Govoni and his associates will face criminal charges over the missing money. He faces two class action lawsuits filed by trust fund holders. The trustee presiding over the center’s bankruptcy has filed a complaint against Govoni for damages. Including interest, the trustee said Govoni owes the center $142 million.

In a disclosure filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, Govoni acknowledged one of the class action lawsuits and accused a Palm Beach family suing on behalf of their disabled son of “inventing legal theories.” Govoni wrote that he intends to “vigorously defend against what we believe to be baseless allegations.”

The civil complaint filed by the state attorney general’s office in Pinellas County addresses only the $2 million missing from the Directed Benefits Foundation. It cites the Florida Anti-Fencing Act’s section on theft, the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and state nonprofit law as grounds for freezing Govoni’s bank accounts and assets.

It suggests further legal action may follow.

“Florida’s investigation is ongoing and anticipates adding additional causes of action,” the complaint states.

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Broken trust: How a Clearwater man took $100M from funds for disabled, records say