When Hurricane Ian slammed Lee County, a treacherous storm surge from the Caloosahatchee River swamped Donald Roedding’s North Fort Myers home with two feet of water.
Roedding’s house was just one of nearly 50,000 homes damaged or destroyed by the monstrous hurricane in the county, which bore the brunt of a storm that killed 150 people and caused a record $112 billion in property damage after making landfall on Sept. 28, 2022.
Roughly $200,000 of that total is attributable to the damage done to Roedding’s 2,900 square-foot home. Displaced, the 60-year-old property manager and his wife Jeanne wanted to return to their home as quickly as possible – and that meant first finding a restoration company to clean up the mess.
His search led to Access Restoration Services US, Inc. (ARS), a Canadian-owned company based in Texas that had set up a “base camp” on Captiva Island, in the heart of the most ravaged areas. He hired ARS after it assured him it would work closely with his insurance company so he’d have no out-of-pocket costs — something he now considers one of the worst decisions of his life.
“I should have waited,” Roedding told the Florida Trident.
What ensued was another disaster. The company, Roedding alleged in Lee County civil court documents, did unnecessary work on the home and overbilled for the work it did. Among his grievances was ARS’ unnecessary removal of the home’s tile flooring, which he said was undamaged and left him with $39,000 in out-of-pocket costs not covered by his insurance company.
The company also billed him for a hazardous materials supervisor who Roedding alleges wasn’t necessary, adding tens of thousands of dollars to the bill, among other alleged abuses.
“[T]he upper kitchen cabinets were not damaged, yet they were removed as was the drywall behind the upper cabinets,” Roedding alleged in court documents. “The air scrubbing equipment was used for 2 weeks when we were told they were only needed for 3 days.”
ARS wound up charging him $180,000 for work he said the insurance company would only reimburse for about $35,000.
“The cost they were charging was astronomical,” said Roedding. “We said, ‘You can’t charge this. We’re not going to pay this.’”
On March 2, 2023, ARS hit Roedding with a lien of $180,000 on his house. ARS then sued him, adding more legal fees to the nightmare. Terms of a settlement reached last October are confidential. “We realized we were hoodwinked and we were one of many,” said Roedding. “I think [several] condo communities had major problems with ARS as well.”
He’s not wrong. A look at court records shows ARS ripped a path through Lee County’s condo communities after Ian struck, filing liens totaling more than $30 million against 20 of them, according to a review by the Trident. In at least 17 of those cases, ARS followed the lien with a lawsuit demanding payment just as it did in Roedding’s case.
Many of the condo associations in turn alleged the liens were fraudulent and designed to pressure them into paying inflated costs. Several counter-sued ARS with allegations eerily similar to those of Roedding, only on a larger scale, claiming the company was operating with “unclean hands” and another alleging they charged excessive fees “to exploit a natural disaster.” ARS denied those allegations and all other wrongdoing in numerous court documents related to the civil cases.
Paying the price are condo unit owners, many of whom have been hit with assessments related to the legal disputes. Most of the condo associations ultimately settled with ARS, but those hit with the largest liens, 194-unit Punta Rassa and 150-unit Ocean Harbor, are battling ARS in court to this day and expect to go to trial in the coming months over disputes totaling well over $25 million.
As the Ian mess played out in Florida, ARS was the subject of more allegations in Texas and Louisiana, many of them connected to its partnership with the Houston law firm McClenny, Moseley and Associates (MMA), which is currently under FBI investigation after the State of Louisiana found it committed massive insurance fraud. MMA also worked with several of the condo associations in Lee County and referred ARS to Roedding, who said he had no idea they were financially connected.
“If we ever have a hurricane hit Florida again,” Roedding said, “I’ll let anyone and everyone know to steer clear of those guys.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did the opposite. In early 2023, as lawsuits were piling up in Lee County, DeSantis began doling out massive contracts to ARS, putting the company accused of ripping off hurricane victims in charge of some of the state’s hurricane relief efforts. In total, the governor’s office has awarded ARS $200 million in state contracts and purchase orders with little oversight, competitive bids, or other safeguards in place.
Most recently DeSantis awarded the company, which this year created a subsidiary called IRG Global Inc., more than $6 million in contracts related to the controversial Everglades immigrant detention camp dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, where IRG is in charge of ground transportation and emergency services.
“I almost was going to write the governor a letter saying, ‘Please don’t use these guys,’” Roedding said. “I don’t want any of my taxpayer’s money going to them at all.”
State campaign records show ARS made all the right political moves before getting that windfall – including paying hundreds of thousands of dollars into key campaign coffers related to DeSantis and the Republican Party.
Paying the political piper
Nathan Normoyle, wearing dark shades and a black shirt adorned with an ARS corporate logo, faces the camera as he talks of how his company swooped into Lee County about five hours after Hurricane Ian swept through Fort Myers.
“We’ve just got back from a flyover of the islands on Fort Myers Beach,” says Normoyle, then an ARS vice president, on a video posted to Facebook a few weeks after Ian struck. “And we just touched down on ARS island base camp which is at Tween Waters Island Resort on Captiva Island, where we’re establishing a semi-permanent base of operations for island services over the next 12 to 24 months.”
From that base camp, Normoyle and other ARS officials quickly racked up contracts with condo associations that sustained damage in the catastrophic storm. The company’s host, Tween Waters, was one of the first to sign a work agreement — just ten days after the hurricane hit — for ARS to tarp four damaged buildings and provide two large generators for the upscale vacation property. (Tween Waters, too, wound up in a bitter million-dollar legal dispute with ARS over alleged overbilling that was settled last October).
Normoyle also spent a lot of time on the iconic Punta Rassa property, located on the eastern side of the Sanibel Causeway. DeSantis visited Punta Rassa for an Ian-related press conference on October 19, just four days after the condo association signed a contract with ARS. It isn’t known if the governor met ARS representatives that day, but just two weeks later, on Nov. 3, the company contributed $99,980 to the governor’s PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis.
The company gave another $99,980 to the Republican Party of Florida three months after that. Since then it has contributed at least another $170,000 to GOP-related campaigns, including $50,000 more to the state party and $75,000 to former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, whom DeSantis appointed to the U.S. Senate earlier this year.
Adding to its political push, ARS hired the powerhouse lobbying firm Ballard Partners in January 2023, where three of the four lobbyists representing the firm were formerly employed in the DeSantis administration — Adrian Lukis, the governor’s former chief of staff, former deputy chief of staff Courtney Coppola, and Dane Eagle, whom DeSantis previously appointed as the state’s Secretary of Economic Opportunity. The fourth lobbyist listed is the firm’s founder, Brian Ballard.
That same month, DeSantis signed an executive order declaring an emergency in Florida related to immigration under the Biden Administration. The order gave the governor carte blanche power to hand out contracts related to transporting migrants without competitive bids and normal procurement rules — and ARS was handed a contract in May 2023 that paid it tens of millions of dollars.
ARS has also received a total of more than $200 million in contracts and purchase orders to transport Israelis to the United States, Americans from Haiti, and play a major role in post-Hurricane Helene disaster relief both in Florida and North Carolina, all paid for by taxpayers.
It’s not known if DeSantis was cognizant of the overbilling allegations made against ARS before trusting them with taxpayers’ money. The governor’s office didn’t respond to a detailed email from the Florida Trident for answers.
DeSantis most recently used his state of emergency declaration regarding immigration to hire contractors to hastily build the Everglades immigrant detention camp dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. Tens of millions of dollars went to large campaign donors of the governor — including the $6 million so far to ARS’ offshoot IRG Global, which incorporated on February 28. The following month, IRG and its president, Robbie Meek, contributed a total of $6,000 to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a close DeSantis ally who has been integral in the formation of the Everglades detention camp.
“No-bid contracts going to political donors certainly looks like pay-for-play corruption to me,” said state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, an outspoken critic of the detention camp. “This whole detention camp is an expensive stunt to get Desantis attention and repay his donors.”
More “astronomical fees”
Allegations of inflated invoices and exploitation against ARS began well before it landed in Florida – and many were tied to its partnership with the troubled MMA law firm.
ARS and Houston-based MMA joined forces in 2021 following Hurricane Ida’s landfall in Louisiana in August. The arrangement, according to court documents, involved an ARS investment of $3 million in MMA made that December to help fund litigation and generate client leads with promised returns of 429% within nine months.
One early example of ARS’ alleged Ida-related abuse involved Starlight Studios, a New Orleans film company that suffered damage from the storm. Starlight initially hired MMA to assist with its insurance claim and the law firm, in turn, advised Starlight to hire ARS for mitigation and restoration with a promise that “the insurers would pay quickly and without any questions,” according to court documents.
Representing ARS was Normoyle, who, according to Starlight’s complaint, never disclosed the fact that ARS was at that time in negotiations to invest the $3 million in MMA or that ARS wasn’t licensed as a contractor in Louisiana at the time. (State records show ARS didn’t apply for its contracting license in the state until February 2022.) Normoyle said the company conducted business legally. “Operationally, my recollection was and my opinion was everything was done in compliance with local and state ordinances,” he said.
Echoing complaints later made in Lee County, Starlight claimed ARS overcharged for the work performed and damaged the studio’s buildings in the process. ARS sued the studio in February 2023 seeking payment of $1,364,569.49. Starlight attorney John Venezia filed a countersuit against ARS that remains in litigation.
“They sent my client enormously high invoices for removing fixtures and putting in dryers,” Venezia told the Trident. “What’s particularly egregious about ARS is that it’s not like they rebuilt anything. They put in dryers and pulled out wet carpet and things like that. They do very little – and they charge astronomical fees for it.”
Likewise, New Orleans dentist Ammar Mekari alleged in a lawsuit that ARS inflated damage estimates at his dental office using ”fraudulent methodologies … in concert with MMA.”
Mekari further alleged that field inspectors working on behalf of ARS to provide estimates for property damage claims in Louisiana, and later, Florida, were instructed to document “non-covered, unrelated property damage, and to also leave the scope of damage sheets vague.”
No fewer than 17 of those field inspectors sued ARS and a Normoyle-led offshoot company, Global Estimating Services (GES), for overtime amounting to several hundred thousand dollars they alleged was never paid. That lawsuit, which named Normoyle personally, included allegations of more shady practices by the companies.
“[S]uspiciously, GES instructed Plaintiffs to document all damage to the property, regardless of whether the damage was storm-related or not, and to keep their damage scope descriptions uncharacteristically vague,” wrote Austin attorney Kerry O’Brien in the complaint. “Even more suspiciously, GES refused to allow Plaintiffs to see any of the estimates performed by GES’s inside estimators based on their inspections.”
The legal action filed by the field inspectors was settled in court earlier this year, and they weren’t the only ones who claimed ARS stiffed them regarding pay in Florida. So did Sanibel boat captain Jimmy Burnsed. In a lawsuit filed in 2023, Burnsed alleged ARS failed to pay him $62,000 after he provided transport services for the company. Burnsed won a default judgement in that amount last July.
A new Normoyle
When ARS swept into Lee County after Hurricane Ian, the company was still working hand-in-hand with MMA. The law firm referred numerous Southwest Florida condo associations to ARS and vice versa.
The Mekari lawsuit alleged MMA’s referral of ARS was “nothing more than a fraudulent kickback scheme which violated public policy, state law, federal law, and was simply intended to reimburse ARS for the $3 million capital investment into MMA’s marketing scheme in the State of Louisiana following Hurricane Ida.”
Fraudulent or not, the partnership began imploding in early 2023, when an investigation by the Louisiana Department of Insurance found MMA engaged in a massive insurance fraud involving the filing of a staggering 1,600 lawsuits against insurance companies, hundreds of them filed on behalf of unknowing storm victims who weren’t clients of the firm.
On February 17 of that year, then-Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon issued an emergency cease-and-desist order barring MMA from doing business in the state while the investigation continued.
“The size and scope of McClenny, Moseley & Associates’ illegal insurance scheme is like nothing I’ve seen before,” Donelon said in a press release.
Shortly thereafter the law firm was estopped from practicing law in both the eastern and western districts of Louisiana and the Louisiana Supreme Court suspended MMA managing partner, William Huye, from practicing law. The state fined MMA $2 million; mass firings and bankruptcy have followed, and the FBI investigation continues.
In May 2023, ARS filed a lawsuit against MMA in Houston seeking to recoup its $3 million investment. It was the same month DeSantis gave ARS its first contract with the State of Florida.
Signing that contract was Normoyle, who just two months later stepped down from ARS under a cloud of controversy related to the MMA fiasco. When contacted by the Trident, Normoyle refused to discuss his departure or details of his former firm’s relationship with MMA, citing a non-disclosure agreement signed when he left the company.
When asked if the State of Florida conducted a background investigation of ARS or did any screening of any kind, Normoyle answered, “Not that I’m aware of.”
“We submitted a proposal that contained the requisite information,” he said. “The proposal was ranked or scored … in congruence with Florida contracting policies.”
Just a month after exiting ARS, Normoyle formed Echo 1 Emergency Logistics Inc., another disaster recovery firm. Despite the fact that Normoyle had left ARS under a cloud, and even before his company was officially registered in Florida, the governor’s office placed two purchase orders with Echo 1 totaling $9.7 million related in part to transporting Americans from war-torn Haiti. (ARS was paid $20 million by the state for the same mission). A $2.9 million contract followed last October for Echo 1 to provide “air support” following Hurricane Milton.
State records show that in May 2025 Echo 1 also retained a high-powered lobbying firm to represent it, Rubin, Turnbull & Associates. Two of the four lobbyists on the team representing Echo 1 are also former DeSantis staffers.
On July 10, DeSantis awarded the company another $10 million contract that appears to be related to flying Israelis to the U.S. via Cyprus, all again on the dime of Florida taxpayers.
“Can’t be trusted”
When asked what she would say to DeSantis if given the chance, a Punta Rassa condo owner didn’t mince words.
“So you accepted [campaign contributions] from this company and now you’re giving them contracts to screw other people across the state,” said the owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the active litigation. “I’m furious about this situation.”
With Ian’s three-year anniversary nearing, the vast majority of Punta Rassa owners still can’t return to their units due to delays, some of them attributable to ARS, she said. Numerous special assessments have been levied against those same owners totaling nearly $100,000, some of that due to the ARS dispute as well, she said.
“I’m able to handle the hits of the special assessments,” said the owner. “It’s been harder for others. … One of the women who was older, and whose husband was ill, didn’t have the money for [the special assessments] and they couldn’t sell their unit. At one board meeting, she was in tears about it.”
ARS, a company owned by a Canadian family, registered in Delaware, based in Texas, and incorporated in Florida, didn’t respond to questions from the Trident via Shutts & Bowen attorney Eric Szabo, who represents the company in its Lee County lawsuits. The company was originally founded by Antonio Gagliano in Toronto back in 1959. Gagliano, who immigrated from Sicily, died last December at the age of 89. The firm is now headed by his son, Joseph Gagliano.
Like Roedding, the Punta Rassa owner said she believes that rather than being showered with state contracts, the company should be banned from operating in Florida. She said fears are rising as Punta Rassa – along with Ocean Harbor on Fort Myers Beach – are scheduled to face off with ARS at trial later this year.
ARS is “in DeSantis’ pocket and I think that ups our possibility to lose that trial,” she said. “After what has happened they can’t be trusted with taxpayers’ money. … Let the immigrants out of Alligator Alcatraz and put ARS in there.”
Sanibel Vice Mayor Holly Smith said that while she has no direct knowledge of the ARS litigation or any specific allegations, she’d heard stories from condo owners about their ordeal. And she said the damage done extends to the entire region.
“The hurricane was a huge hit, but then they’re hit again and again, just as tragically,” said Smith, whose own home was damaged in the hurricane. “How do they move forward? This is three years later and it’s critical to our recovery. It’s so frustrating.”
About the authors: Trident senior editor Bob Norman is a veteran investigative journalist whose work has won dozens of awards and led to criminal charges and the removal of several corrupt public officials. He can be reached at norman@flcga.org.
Michelle DeMarco is an award-winning investigative reporter who returned to journalism after more than two decades in public service. Contact her at demarco@flcga.org.The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.