TALLAHASSEE -- A well-known political campaign consultant and former aide to a Florida governor is tied to a federal corruption investigation touching the highest levels of state government, the Herald/Times has learned.

Stephen D. Hull, a Tallahassee-based lobbyist and consultant, helped establish a political committee whose records were seized by the FBI before Wednesday's indictment of Dr. Alan Mendelsohn, a Broward ophthalmologist and high-profile fundraiser for dozens of current and former state lawmakers.

Hull, a lobbyist for the Florida Society of Ophthalmologists, did not return messages to his cell phone, office phone or e-mail. He worked as the press secretary to then-Gov. Bob Graham for seven years in the 1970s and '80s.

Two of the political committees under investigation -- the Alliance for Florida's Future and the Alliance for Promoting Florida's Future -- share a phone number or address with Hull's offices, records show.

An officer with one of those groups told the Herald/Times that Hull directed payments from its accounts. Both committees paid thousands of dollars in consulting fees to companies controlled by Hull in Tallahassee and Georgia, according to records and interviews.

Hull is not named in the indictment, which accuses Mendelsohn of using those two committees and a third to illegally shuffle money to himself and his mistress, and to help pay for his children's education. Mendelsohn also told some committee donors -- falsely, prosecutors say -- that he was using some of the money to bribe state officials, including Gov. Charlie Crist.

The indictment refers to an unnamed ``accomplice #1,'' described as a lobbyist and businessman who works in Florida and other places. The accomplice helped Mendelsohn set up political action committees and corporations to disguise the movement of campaign funds to Mendelsohn, his children, politicians and others, the indictment says.

The indictment casts a harsh light on the flow of special-interest money among lobbyists, political consultants and campaigns. The most sensational charge: that Mendelsohn steered $87,000 in illegal payments to an unnamed public official from 2003 to 2006.

In total, prosecutors say, Mendelsohn solicited more than $2 million from several unnamed donors seeking the doctor's help to influence legislation or quash other investigations. Mendelsohn, who faces 32 felony charges, has pleaded not guilty.

One of the biggest donors was Dan Adkins, president of the Mardi Gras Race Track and Casino in Hallandale Beach. His companies gave at least $265,000 to a Mendelsohn-controlled committee as the casino was lobbying for expanded casino gambling, records show.

Hull also lobbied for Adkins' company in 2005, records show, as gaming companies were wrapping up a successful six-year, $18 million effort to legalize Las Vegas-style slot machines. ``I'm aware of the federal investigation and I've been cooperating. But there's an indictment and I don't think it's appropriate to comment at this time,'' Adkins said Thursday. ``When I can comment, I will.''

Asked if he is the person identified as ``contributor #3'' in the indictment -- whose company, the indictment says, gave $600,000 -- Adkins said he couldn't talk about it.

A second donor is Joel Steinger, the former head of Mutual Benefits Corp., a Fort Lauderdale insurance company shut down in a separate fraud case. Steinger's company paid more than $1.5 million to Mendelsohn's PACs based on promises from Mendelsohn to pay off government officials -- including Crist -- to thwart the Mutual Benefits investigation, according to the indictment. Steinger has cooperated in the Mendelsohn probe.

Much of the siphoned money moved through the Alliance for Florida's Future, a committee formed in 2002 and shut down last week.

For several years, the PAC listed among its officers Rick Oppenheim, a Tallahassee public-relations consultant. But Oppenheim said the committee was really run by Hull and Hull's associate, Sarah Harris, who instructed him on which campaigns to pay out of the PAC's account.

``I like to work in a transparent environment,'' Oppenheim said. ``But they were so mysterious and shadowy that it didn't smell right.''

He said he gave all of his files on the Alliance to the FBI last month.

Oppenheim showed the Herald/Times e-mails in which he asked Hull and Harris to remove him from the records of Alliance. Harris, who didn't return calls, declined to talk to a reporter who came to her home.

One of Hull's companies, Consulting and Communications Group in Thomasville, Ga., earned at least $269,800 from the Alliance for Florida's Future, according to state and federal records. It earned another $155,000 from two other political committees closely tied to Alliance. The Alliance paid another company, Communications Counselors, at least $267,237, federal records show. No corporate records exist for the firm in Florida, though Oppenheim said it was Hull's firm.

Hull doesn't mention either company on the website of his main company, Political Communications. On the site, he boasts of his work with Gov. Bob Graham, a Democrat, and says he was a ``major contributor'' in the Republicans' takeover of the legislatures in Florida and Georgia.

Hull and Mendelsohn have been close for more than a decade, said Bobby Davis, whose company managed the Florida Society of Ophthalmology several years ago.

He said his company stopped working with the Florida Society of Ophthalmology because Mendelsohn and Hull ``were always trying to spend more on lobbying than the group had, and they were constantly telling the staff to write checks to legislators without going through a process of discussion with the board.''