Audio: Pedicini and Beruff Deposed in Kruse DUI Case

On April 20, 2022, Kruse was involved in a single-car accident near the gate of his subdivision and charged with one count of reckless driving. However, two weeks later, bodycam footage and 911 call recordings were released, showing a clearly impaired Kruse behind the wheel of his crashed truck, while his wife, Jessica Kruse, pled with dispatchers not to send a patrol car to the crash site. Mrs. Kruse can also be heard directing her lethargic husband to get out of the crashed vehicle.

Inexplicably, the responding officer did not ask the commissioner to submit to a breathalyzer or field sobriety test, despite expressing his opinion that Kruse was severely inebriated. Nevertheless, the State Attorney's Office charged Kruse in June. According to Pedicini's testimony, he and his client, Kruse, had a falling out over Kruse making workforce housing a priority issue, which he didn't think was helpful from a political perspective. They intended to meet in order to "make up," and, because Pedicini was having dinner with Beruff and his family at the developer's home that evening, asked if they could meet there prior.

Pedicini acknowledged that they had drinks but couldn't say for certain exactly how much Kruse had consumed, estimating it was about a glass and a half of wine. Both parties said that Beruff was present both before the meeting and after. Pedicini's consulting firm has worked closely in recent years with candidates who have been backed financially by the developer, including Kruse and fellow Manatee County Commissioners Kevin Van Ostenbridge and James Satcher, all of whom were elected to the board in 2020.

Pedicini also handles many of the dark money PACs involved in those races and was the consultant for Mike Rahn and Jason Bearden, who also won seats on the board in Tuesday's election. That means Pedicini will now handle six of the seven commissioners on the board. Republican Amanda Ballard, who will challenge Democrat Reggie Bellamy for the District 2 seat in November, has also hired Pedicini's firm, giving him the potential to be in the employ of the entire board, should Ballard win.

Beruff, who is the founder of Medallion Homes, is one of the most politically-connected developers in the state and has enjoyed a tremendous amount of influence over Manatee County Republican politics. In 2020, he invested a small fortune in backing Kruse (through both campaign donations and PACs) to win over former Manatee County Administrator Ed Hunzeker, with whom Beruff had fallen out, reportedly over Hunzeker's insistence on pushing a half-cent health care sales tax.

The investigation also revealed that in the time between the meeting at Beruff's house and the automobile accident, Kruse and his wife stopped at Sixty East, a martini bar near the Ellenton outlet mall, where they are said to have purchased a bottle of wine. Audio of both Beruff and Pedicini's testimony can be accessed below.