TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A global rescue and disaster recovery company that helped evacuate Floridians from Haiti last year during a period of civil unrest has sued the state for $7.5 million, claiming Florida failed to pay the company for its role in the rescue efforts.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tallahassee on Thursday, TAD Recovery Services of Texas said Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie hired the firm, fired them mid-mission, replaced them with two politically connected vendors, and then asked them to come back when those vendors couldn’t compete the job.

The company sued for breach of contract and to recoup money it claims it is still owed.

Florida’s Division of Emergency of Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

The state originally hired TAD Recovery Services to help the Tim Tebow Foundation fly orphaned children from Haiti, amid the civil unrest after its prime minister resigned, the lawsuit said. Tebow is a former University of Florida Gator football star quarterback, hall-of-famer and Heisman Trophy winner whose foundation helps children with disabilities and builds hospitals in poor countries.

The job morphed into a larger rescue mission to identify and evacuate Florida residents.

“Armed gangs had escalated their attacks on Haitian prisons, airports, governmental infrastructure, elected officials and innocent residents, including attacks on Floridians and other U.S. Citizens,” the lawsuit said.

The state eventually helped evacuate more than 700 Americans from Haiti, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference last April.

According to the lawsuit, Guthrie reached out to TAD on March 12, 2024. Three days later, DeSantis issued an executive order authorizing the Haitian mission after declaring that Floridians there were in danger.

“There was no question that in order for TAD to fulfill the objectives of the mission, it would be risking the safety of its personnel and would be required to immediately assemble a team of highly skilled and knowledgeable professionals on a moment’s notice that would be capable of carrying out the mission in a war zone,” the lawsuit said.

The state issued two purchase orders — $4.5 million for recovery services and $507,000 for three charter flights and ground operations.

TAD Recovery Services was selected, it says, because of its prior experience evacuating people from war zones. It had previously helped hundreds of Floridians and other Americans get out of Israel after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the lawsuit said.

TAD got authority to fly in and out of Haiti and on March 15 started moving Americans from the dangerous Port-au-Prince, where gangs were attacking foreigners, to the safer Cap Haitien, where the company arranged to have them flown to the United States.

Guthrie contracted with ARS Global to set up a call center and welcome center in Florida and to secure helicopters and planes to help the evacuation efforts. The state also gave Echo 1, a spinoff of ARS Global run by one of its former officers, a purchase order to provide helicopter and plane support.

A week after the mission began, Guthrie contacted TAD to say that ARS and Echo 1 failed to provide the air support they had promised, the lawsuit said. The Texas company agreed to provide eight helicopters for an additional $2 million “as a place holder until TAD could provide a formal quote & FDEM could provide a new Purchase Order as Kevin Guthrie was out of office.”

TAD submitted a revised proposal on March 22, 2024. The state asked for supporting documentation within 12 hours — but after 11 hours terminated its contract with TAD and reassigned the contracts to ARS and Echo 1 “even though ARS and Echo 1 had put the mission in jeopardy due to their failure to perform as it related to rotary assets,” the lawsuit said.

Emergency management officials gave TAD no reason why it chose to award those multimillion-dollar contracts to ARS and Echo1, the lawsuit said. One possible motive might have been ARS Global’s donations to the GOP and DeSantis, the lawsuit said.

ARS Global had donated $150,000 to the Florida GOP and nearly $100,000 to a political committee associated with DeSantis from November of 2022 through October of 2024. Echo 1’s CEO, Nathan Normoyle, donated $2,500 to DeSantis’ presidential campaign.

Also, ARS had hired one of the state’s top lobbying firms, Ballard Partners, to help procure work from Florida. Two former DeSantis staffers who worked for Ballard were assigned to help ARS in that effort.

A year before getting the contracts for the Haitian mission, a storm of lawsuits were filed against ARS Global and the Houston law firm McClenny Moseley & Associates, accusing them of generating huge legal fees by filing inflated damage claims for hurricane victims in Louisiana and Texas.

ARS Global faces similar accusations from homeowners who hired the company to repair their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

Another ARS spin-off, IRG Global, received a $20 million contract to fly people out of Israel this year after donating $10,000 to the Republican Party of Florida. The company also received over $6 million in contracts to help build and run Alligator Alcatraz.

But when the vendors couldn’t complete the mission in Haiti, the state asked TAD Recovery Services to step back in, “due to the concern that the other vendors lacked the capability to provide such services and if they attempted to do so, it could compromise the mission,” the lawsuit said.

The agency also asked that some TAD employees stay in Haiti to “ensure the successful transition of the mission to the other vendors.”

TAD agreed and eventually submitted invoices for payment of $7.54 million. The state demanded proof the company provided the services — requirements it didn’t demand of the other vendors, the lawsuit said.

The state paid ARS Global $20 million and Echo 1 $6.6 million for the Haitian rescue operation.

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