Rick Scott's Playboy Connection Gets Him In Trouble With Conservative Group

Florida's Christian Family Coalition, a Miami-based social conservative group, raised concern Thursday that newly elected Governor Rick Scott has financial ties to adult entertainment giant Playboy.

According to a recent report by Orlando's WESH, Scott has somewhere around two million shares of Latino social networking site QuePasa, nearly 15 percent of the company -- and worth approximately $6-8 million. QuePasa has a partnership with Playboy Mexico.

"We cannot have a governor in the state of Florida that invests in companies that sell pornography," Rev. Mark D. Boykin, a spokesman for the group, said recently. "We are asking that before he takes the oath of office, Gov.-elect Scott gets rid of his stocks from QuePasa Corporation. The governor of the state of Florida should not be benefiting or have an interest in pornography. It goes against our family values."

Scott complied with the request -- sort of.

"Mr. Scott will move his money into a blind trust and will remove himself from the decision-making when it comes to his investments," Scott spokesman Brian Burgess told WESH, though he admitted that he couldn't guarantee that the new fund wouldn't continue to invest in QuePasa or Playboy, for that matter.

Politifact reports on the QuePasa-Playboy connection:

Quepasa and Playboy began partnering in 2009 to find and identify "Cyber Chicas" for the magazine's Mexico edition. Quepasa created an online community that features models wanting to be included in Playboy. Users of the website can go to the Playboy community to vote for and rank the women. Three finalists are forwarded each month to Playboy, which selects a winner. A 24-year-old Brazilian, Fernanda Schonardie, was selected as the first "Cyber Chica" and was featured in a full-page layout in the March 2009 edition of Playboy México.