The payoffs were slipped into a restaurant doggie bag, an envelope and a leather day planner -- more than $40,000 in cash that undercover FBI agents, posing as corrupt businessmen, say they paid three Broward politicians arrested Wednesday in unrelated fraud cases.

With hidden tape recorders rolling, the classic FBI ``sting'' operations entangled County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion Jr., School Board member Beverly Gallagher and former Miramar Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman. The arrests shocked Broward's political community, still recovering from the 2007 corruption conviction of ex-Sheriff Ken Jenne.

More arrests are expected, after agents went public and started questioning dozens of people involved in the county's lucrative school building program, including lobbyists, school district employees and construction contractors.

``We are not done,'' acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman pledged.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who served eight years in the Florida House with Eggelletion, expressed dismay over the arrests.

``It shakes the confidence of the public in their elected leaders,'' she said.

Among the three defendants, Gallagher is the only one charged with commiting recent, continuing crimes. She is accused of taking kickbacks from a Broward contractor seeking to break into Broward's school construction business.

Eggelletion was charged, along with two Broward businessmen and a Bahamian attorney, with conspiring to launder money from a fraudulent investment scheme. Salesman, who unwittingly introduced FBI agents to Eggelletion, was charged with taking bribes for municipal projects.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the ongoing investigation said it is zeroing in on Gallagher's relationship with lobbyist Neil Sterling and others who sought the School Board member's vote for school construction projects.

On Wednesday afternoon, Eggelletion, Salesman and Gallagher appeared before federal Magistrate Judge Lurana Snow. They were granted personal surety bonds and released. Lawyers for the defendants did not comment on the allegations.

Gov. Charlie Crist issued an executive order suspending Eggelletion and Gallagher. He will interview candidates and make interim appointments sometime in the next several weeks.

According to criminal complaints filed in court on the three investigations:

• Gallagher accepted $12,500 from FBI agents posing as consultants for contractors who were trying to land School Board projects. Specifically, the money was in exchange for her lobbying on behalf of a glass company seeking subcontracting work on a $71 million renovation project at Hollywood Hills High School.

At a November 2007 social event, Gallagher spoke with the undercover FBI agent posing as the glass company's representative. Three months later, Gallagher met with the agent, who said the firm was having trouble getting prequalified for a contract. He asked if he could hire her as a ``consultant.''

She agreed, helping the company set up a meeting with Michael Garretson, the school district's deputy construction superintendent, so the glass company could get prequalified. Garretson is not named in the complaint.

The undercover agent told Gallagher he was paid $4,000 by the glass company, which he split with Gallagher at a restaurant; he gave Gallagher a day planner stuffed with the cash, which she put ``in a plastic bag in which she had placed leftovers from her meal,'' the complaint said.

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