The St. Johns Citizen reported Wednesday afternoon that the refiled charging documents in the voter guide case were filed on Nov. 2, in St. Johns County Court. The Citizen’s account carries two facts the first report did not, the filing date and the assignment, and the case is before County Judge Casey Woolsey.

According to the Citizen, the Nov. 2 filing charges the five defendants with conspiracy and unauthorized voter guide offenses. Three of the five are officeholders this paper has named throughout: County Commissioners Sarah Arnold and Christian Whitehurst, and St. Augustine Beach Commissioner and former Mayor Dylan Rumrell. The other two are a political consultant and a campaign manager, and this paper does not name them under its standing rule on private individuals in criminal cases.

One count did not come back, by the Citizen’s account, and it is the one that could not come back. Circuit Judge William E. Davis dismissed the campaign manager’s felony evidence tampering count with prejudice on Oct. 16, and the Citizen reports the new filing does not include it. The misdemeanor counts against the other four defendants were dismissed on Oct. 2, without prejudice, for want of circuit court jurisdiction. The refiled case now sits in the county court that the October orders said misdemeanor counts standing alone belonged in.

The underlying allegation is unchanged from the circuit case, as the Citizen describes it, and it concerns the August 2024 Republican primary. Investigators allege the defendants helped distribute voter guides that resembled official St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee materials while promoting candidates the local party had not endorsed. The Citizen also reports the defense position of Whitehurst’s attorneys, that permission was not required because the party’s names and symbols were registered only after the mailings.

First Coast News had reported the fact of the refiling on Nov. 3, in a feed item naming the court and the number of defendants and nothing else. The Citizen’s account is the fullest public record of the filing tonight, and every fact not drawn from a court order this paper has read is attributed to it.

What this newsroom still cannot read are the charging documents themselves, which hold the case numbers and the counts as pleaded against each defendant. Whether the state addressed the time limitation question in refiling is a fact in those documents, and the Clerk’s case search requires an authentication this newsroom does not have. The paper will report the documents when a readable record exists, whatever they carry and however long that takes.

This newsroom asked the prosecuting office in writing on Oct. 22 whether it intended to refile, who chose circuit court in July, and whether it considered that choice an error. The refiling answers the first question in the only form the public has, and the office has not answered the other two.

Every refiled count is on this paper’s disposition watch, and the outcome of each one will be published at the prominence of the original story. The next entry in this file will be the charging documents themselves, or the first court date the record shows, whichever becomes readable first.

A criminal charge is an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The Tattler tracks the cases it reports and publishes the outcome, including when charges are dropped or reduced. If you are named in this story and the case has resolved, write to corrections@stjohnstattler.org and we will update it.