There are less than two months to go until Florida voters make a decision in the governor’s race. Attack ads keep coming from both sides in the race.

The Republican Party of Florida is trying to link former Gov. Charlie Crist to convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein. Rothstein was convicted in 2010 for his ties to a $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme and sentenced to 50 years in prison. In a new ad, the RPOF claims:

    "Convicted swindler Scott Rothstein bought expensive things with stolen money. He even bought a governor. Rothstein boasted about contributing huge sums of money to the campaign of then Gov. Charlie Crist and the influence it gave him over judicial appointments. Now cooperating with prosecutors, Scott Rothstein admits he gave hundreds of thousands of campaign cash to control Crist’s appointments of key state judges."

PolitiFact Florida examined the claim for truthfulness. Writer Linda Qiu says the claim rates HALF TRUE. Qiu says it’s clear Rothstein had ties to the Crist campaign, but it gets stickier after that.

“It's true that Rothstein gave a lot of money to the Republican Party of Florida when Crist was a Republican,” Qiu said. “And he even gave some money directly to Crist for fundraisers and even a birthday party.”

In August 2008, Crist appointed Rothstein to the Judicial Nominating Commission for the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach. The JNC is a nine-member panel that recommends applicants for the governor to appoint.

The claim from RPOF centers around testimony Rothstein gave in February 2014 in a related case. In the testimony, Rothstein said he was able to convince then-Gov. Crist of a lot of things, including appointing people to judicial positions. But Qiu said his membership on the board wasn’t always influential.

“We also talked to a couple of the members of the commission that served with him,” Qiu said. “And no one recalls Rothstein being a particularly vocal member of the commission.”

Because there are is no clear accounting of conversations between Crist and Rothstein about judicial appointments, PolitiFact rated the claim HALF TRUE.

SOURCES: SCOTT ROTHSTEIN'S TIES TO FORMER GOVERNOR CHARLIE CRIST