TDFP Exclusive: The 'Hard-to-Trace' Alabama PAC Behind $4.1 Million in Anti-Bennett Ads Lists Its Treasurer at the Firm of CLF's Own Treasurer
The Alabama super PAC that spent more than $4.1 million on ads against Democrat Rebecca Bennett in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, a group New Jersey political insiders called "hard to trace," lists its treasurer at the compliance firm of the Congressional Leadership Fund's own treasurer, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by The Digital Free Press.
Land I Love PAC's registration with the FEC gives its treasurer's email address at crosbyott.com, the domain of Crosby Ottenhoff Group, and gives the firm's office at 421 Office Park Drive in Mountain Brook, Ala., as the PAC's own address. Crosby Ottenhoff Group was founded by Republican strategists Caleb Crosby and Benjamin Ottenhoff, according to a December 2024 report by the Rhode Island Current. Caleb Crosby signs the Congressional Leadership Fund's FEC reports as its treasurer, including the quarterly report CLF filed on Oct. 15.
That report, and Land I Love PAC's own, show that on Sept. 17 CLF gave Land I Love PAC $4,150,000. The money amounts to 92.5 percent of everything the PAC raised between July 1 and Sept. 30, and it arrived four days before the first of two multimillion-dollar ad buys against Bennett.
The same day, the PAC took in a second large check: $150,000 from Pointe Resort LLC of Harvey, La., which the filing attributes to Robert Guidry, the Louisiana businessman whose companies were paid $83 million by the State of Florida last year for four acres in Destin, according to the Florida Phoenix and the Tampa Bay Times.
Nothing in the records suggests any of this is improper. Super PACs may accept unlimited contributions from other political committees, companies and individuals, and compliance firms routinely serve as treasurer for many committees at once. But the filings answer a question that had hung over the most competitive House race in New Jersey: where the money behind the state's biggest outside ad campaign actually came from, and who handles the group's books.
Land I Love PAC treasurer Kirsten Quick, the Congressional Leadership Fund and the campaigns of Rep. Tom Kean Jr. and Rebecca Bennett did not respond to requests for comment by The Digital Free Press's Sunday noon deadline.
Land I Love PAC Had Raised $662,000 Before the CLF Check Arrived
Land I Love PAC registered with the FEC on May 9, 2025, as an independent-expenditure-only committee, the formal name for a super PAC. Its Statement of Organization lists Kirsten Quick as treasurer, 421 Office Park Drive in Mountain Brook as its mailing address and KIRSTEN@CROSBYOTT.COM as its email.
For its first 14 months the group was small. Its reports show $332,733 raised from its founding through June 2025, almost all of it a single $317,733 contribution from the Conservative Future Fund, which lists the same Mountain Brook address; $32,500 in the second half of 2025; $296,000 in the first quarter of 2026; and $1,000 in the second quarter. That is $662,233 in all before July 1, a figure that matches the roughly $662,000 Politico's New Jersey Playbook cited on Oct. 1 when it described the PAC as "hard to trace" and said "not much is known about where the money is coming from."
Before New Jersey, the PAC's only reported independent spending was $45,230 on text messages supporting Jimmy Patronis in Florida's 1st District Republican primary in August.
Then came the third quarter. The PAC's October Quarterly report, filed Oct. 15, shows $4,484,750 in receipts, $4,206,251 in spending and $875,686 in the bank on Sept. 30. Of the receipts, $4,318,400, or 96 percent, arrived on a single day, Sept. 17, led by the $4,150,000 from CLF and the $150,000 from Pointe Resort LLC.
The report also shows what the money bought. Land I Love PAC paid Del Ray Media LLC of Alexandria, Va., $2,037,271 for media placement disseminated Sept. 21 and $2,092,415 for a second flight disseminated Sept. 29, plus $13,067 to The O'Donnell Group of Baton Rouge, La., for media production. All three expenditures are reported as opposing Bennett, for a total of $4,142,753.
The Treasurer's Firm, and CLF's Treasurer
The link between the PAC and CLF runs through the paperwork rather than the ads.
Crosby Ottenhoff Group describes itself on its website as a provider of "accounting and compliance" services for "political, nonprofit, and advocacy organizations," including "full setup service" for new political committees. The site lists no staff by name; its contact page gives a general email and a Washington, D.C., phone number. Land I Love PAC's reports show it paid the firm $10,000 for "compliance consulting" in March and $7,500 more in July and September. The PAC's registered address is that same office.
Caleb Crosby, the firm's co-founder, is listed as treasurer of the Congressional Leadership Fund in CLF's own FEC filings. He is also identified as CLF's treasurer by InfluenceWatch, a project of the Capital Research Center, which describes him as a former president of the Alabama Policy Institute and a former chief financial officer of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
CLF is the super PAC aligned with House Republican leadership, and its October Quarterly report, signed by Crosby, lists the $4,150,000 contribution to Land I Love PAC on Sept. 17 from its non-contribution account. The same report lists a $715,000 contribution the same day to Defending America PAC of Athens, Ga., and a $5,000 direct contribution on Sept. 9 to Kean for Congress. CLF is registered as a hybrid PAC, so a direct contribution to a candidate is permitted.
The CLF contribution itself was first noted on Oct. 15 by Punchbowl News reporters on X and has since been reported by the New Jersey Monitor. The PAC's registration at the firm of CLF's treasurer, and its same-day check from Pointe Resort LLC, had not been reported before this story.
Whether Crosby, Quick or anyone at Crosby Ottenhoff Group has any role in Land I Love PAC beyond compliance work is a question The Digital Free Press put to the firm, the PAC and CLF. Many compliance firms serve as treasurer of record for dozens of committees, a practice that is legal and common, and a shared vendor does not by itself show who makes a PAC's spending decisions.
The Same-Day $150,000 From a Florida Land-Deal Developer
The $150,000 from Pointe Resort LLC is reported as a partnership contribution attributed to Robert Guidry, identified in the filing as a partner. It was the company's second check to the PAC this year: Pointe Resort LLC gave $225,000 on March 31, the largest contribution in the PAC's April report, bringing its 2026 total to $375,000. Across the PAC's entire existence, that makes the Guidry company the group's largest donor other than CLF, ahead of the Conservative Future Fund's $317,733.
In October 2025 the Florida Phoenix, citing the Tampa Bay Times, reported that Florida's governor and Cabinet had approved paying $83 million for a four-acre parcel in Destin owned by Pointe Mezzanine LLC and Pointe Resort LLC, "both of which are registered in state corporate filings to Robert Guidry, a Louisiana business owner." Earlier this month, the Florida newsletter Seeking Rents reported that Pointe Resort LLC gave $100,000 this summer to committees tied to four top Florida Republicans.
Guidry's name also appears in an older chapter of Louisiana politics. In 1998, according to the Los Angeles Times, a Robert Guidry who was then an owner of the Treasure Chest riverboat casino pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort, in connection with payments to former Gov. Edwin Edwards to secure state approval of the casino's license. The Florida Phoenix report on the Destin purchase recounted the same case in describing Guidry. The Digital Free Press has not independently confirmed that the Guidry in the FEC filing and the Guidry in the 1998 case are the same person beyond the connection those outlets reported through Pointe Resort LLC.
Pointe Resort LLC lists its address as 1901 Manhattan Blvd. in Harvey, La. The Digital Free Press was unable to locate a working press contact for the company or for Guidry before publication.
41 Massachusetts Donors in Nine Days
The rest of the PAC's third-quarter money is smaller, and some of it is unusual for a group running ads in New Jersey. Between Sept. 8 and Sept. 17, 41 donors from Massachusetts, 14 businesses and 27 individuals, gave Land I Love PAC a combined $117,550. The largest were 1A Auto Inc. of Pepperell ($25,000), C. Stumpo Development of Newton ($10,000), Highland Estates Norwell LLC of Milton ($10,000) and John Ferreira of Rehoboth ($10,000). The filing does not say why an Alabama committee spending in New Jersey drew a cluster of Massachusetts money in a nine-day window.
Other third-quarter contributors include Tootsies Entertainment LLC of Goodlettsville, Tenn. ($40,000), Oasis Resorts Inc. of Panama City Beach, Fla. ($10,000), Adcock Transport of Manheim, Pa. ($5,000), The Baldwin Insurance Group Holdings LLC of Tampa ($5,000) and PCI Gaming Authority of Atmore, Ala. ($3,000).
What Politico Found, and What the New Filings Add
When Politico's New Jersey Playbook examined the PAC on Oct. 1, it reported that the group had spent about $2 million against Bennett to that point, that most of its earlier funding had come from "Louisiana businessman Robert Guidry and the Conservative Future Fund, another group that lists the same Alabama address," that it shared a bank and a media vendor with MAGA Inc., and that it was on track, according to the ad tracker AdImpact, to spend more than $4 million on the race. Treasurer Kirsten Quick did not respond to Politico's request for comment.
The Oct. 15 filings fill in the rest: the $4.15 million came from CLF, the PAC's registration runs through the firm of CLF's treasurer, and the Guidry company doubled down the same day.
The timing is notable for another reason. By Oct. 15, CLF and President Donald Trump's Affordability and Safety PAC were pulling their remaining advertising out of the 7th District to shift money to other races, the New Jersey Globe reported, citing The New York Times. Land I Love PAC's two ad flights, placed Sept. 21 and Sept. 29, had already run.
The Campaigns' Own Money
Both campaigns filed their own third-quarter reports on Oct. 15. Bennett raised more than $4 million in the quarter and had about $1.6 million on hand, while Rep. Tom Kean Jr. raised $974,000 and had nearly $2.9 million on hand, according to the New Jersey Globe.
Why It Matters
Outside groups have now spent well over $4 million against Bennett through Land I Love PAC alone, on top of what CLF and other committees spent under their own names before withdrawing. A voter who saw one of the PAC's ads and looked up who paid for it would have found an Alabama address, a treasurer's name and, until the Oct. 15 filings, a few hundred thousand dollars in reported contributions. The Oct. 15 filings show that the money came overwhelmingly from the House Republican leadership's super PAC, and that the PAC's paperwork runs through the firm of that super PAC's treasurer.
The Digital Free Press takes no position on the race. The 7th District election is Nov. 3.
Sources: Land I Love PAC, FEC Statement of Organization (Form 1, filed May 9, 2025), Mid-Year 2025, Year-End 2025, April 2026 Quarterly, July 2026 Quarterly and October 2026 Quarterly reports, and 24/48-hour independent expenditure reports, via the FEC; Congressional Leadership Fund, October 2026 Quarterly report (FEC-2027985) and FEC committee record; Crosby Ottenhoff Group website; Rhode Island Current, Dec. 10, 2024; InfluenceWatch profile of the Congressional Leadership Fund; Politico New Jersey Playbook, Oct. 1, 2026; Florida Phoenix, Oct. 2, 2025, citing the Tampa Bay Times; Seeking Rents, Oct. 4, 2026; Los Angeles Times, Oct. 18, 1998; New Jersey Globe, Oct. 15, 2026, citing The New York Times; New Jersey Monitor, Oct. 16, 2026.
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