TAMPA, Fla. — For Matt Chipperfield, the request seemed like any other.

Since the St. Johns County fishing charter captain first learned last month the state could trade away 600 acres of his community’s pristine wilderness preserve, he’d been speaking to reporters and podcasters to spread information that he hoped would block the deal.

So when a person claiming to be a producer for “60 Minutes” called him May 19, Chipperfield figured it was just another inquiry. The person, who identified themselves as “Oliver,” asked him what he knew about the land swap and who he thought might be behind it. He also scheduled an interview.

But Oliver repeatedly rescheduled the sit-down, according to text messages reviewed by the Tampa Bay Times. The producer first cited food poisoning, then said “60 Minutes” had secured an interview with Gov. Ron DeSantis but the governor was running late. Eventually, Chipperfield stopped hearing back.

But the person wasn’t a producer with “60 Minutes” at all, the Times has confirmed.

The news program doesn’t employ any producer named Oliver, according to a spokesperson for CBS. Additionally, no one from “60 Minutes” interviewed the governor. DeSantis has had an acrimonious relationship with that news program since a segment aired in 2021 that was critical of his handling of the COVID pandemic, sparking backlash from both the governor and some Democratic officials.

“60 minutes? That’s funny‚” replied DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin via email when asked if an interview took place. (“60 Minutes” in Australia, which has no affiliation to the CBS News show but has the same name, also confirmed it doesn’t have any producer named Oliver — or anyone in Florida at the moment.)

“They were pumping me for information about who I was talking to,” said Chipperfield, whose social media videos about the controversy have drawn hundreds of thousands of views.

“It was nefarious in nature, but it also let me know that I said something that put pressure on somebody.”

It’s unclear who Oliver really works for. The Times called and texted the numbers used to contact Chipperfield, but no one responded.

This episode is the latest and perhaps most bizarre twist in a public lands controversy that has remained a tightly kept secret. Weeks after a recently created limited liability corporation withdrew the proposal in response to protests by Floridians, nearly all the particulars of the deal have remained hidden. That includes what The Upland LLC would have done with the 600 acres of pristine wildlife preserve. When the company shelved its proposal, a letter from its lawyer to state officials said only that the public was misinformed, and “there was never any intention to develop the acquired land for commercial or community development purposes.”

The public also still doesn’t know the identity of the person or company behind the LLC.

State Rep. Kim Kendall, R-St. Augustine, has asked the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for weeks to reveal the person behind The Upland LLC so she can meet with them. The 600 acres in the deal are in her district.

But the agency has so far refused, Kendall said in response to questions from the Times. Last week, the agency’s legislative affairs director, Brett Tubbs, told Kendall that “nobody” in the department knows the identity, she said, and the staff has only interacted with the lawyer representing The Upland LLC, Gary Hunter.

When asked for comment, Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Alexandra Kuchta did not address the question directly.

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t respond to a question like this, but to be clear: (the Department of Environmental Protection) provided Rep. Kendall with the contact information for the applicant’s representative,” she wrote in an email.

The agency houses the committee that was days from voting on the land swap when it was pulled. Department of Environmental Protection staff had recommended that state officials on that committee approve the deal.

On May 6, the agency’s public lands director of eight years, Callie DeHaven, abruptly resigned, according to a copy of her resignation letter obtained by the Times.

Kendall said it’s been “frustrating” to not be able to meet with the person behind the land swap. She has said she wants to explore getting the state to buy the LLC’s land, adjacent to the Guana River Wildlife Management Area, to add it to the preserve as well as file legislation next year to prevent swaps like this from emerging again.

“Based on the applicant’s withdrawal letter, he seems to have a lot to say,” Kendell said in a text. “From my end, the offer to have a conversation remains open, should he choose to reconsider.”

The Times submitted a public records request for a copy of the slideshow presentation that would have been shown at the council meeting to describe the proposal. Kuchta said in an email that officials didn’t possess one.

The governor’s office, too, did not respond to emails asking whether DeSantis’ staff knows who’s behind the LLC. DeSantis ignored a question from a reporter about the landowner’s identity at a news conference in Tampa last month.

There are a few other people that may know who owns the 3,066 acres that would have been purchased by the LLC to give to the state in return for the preserved land. There are four landowners, each with hundreds of acres that were identified on the land council’s public meeting agenda. Two of the four men did not respond to calls, texts and social media messages from reporters.

Daniel Lanier, a senior adviser at Lakeland-based Saunders Real Estate, said a broker approached him in January about buying roughly 1,200 acres of Osceola County land from his client, a Miami man named Ceferino Machado.

On May 21 — two days after The Upland LLC formally withdrew its proposal — the broker, whom Lanier said worked for Fusilier Realty Group, canceled the sale. The Fusilier Realty broker has not responded to repeated calls and emails from the Times.

“There was nothing special about it, it was a simple vacant land contract,” Lanier said in a recent interview. “I had no idea who they were or what they were doing.”

A landowner in Volusia County who owns a parcel the LLC would have acquired, Matthew Boni, said the sale of his land also didn’t go through.

“As the seller, I was blind to all of that,” he said, referring to the state’s controversy. Boni declined to elaborate further, including naming the broker that approached him for the land.

Kendall has also been trying to get answers from Hunter, the LLC’s lawyer.

Rumors have persisted that the developer behind the trade was Patrick Zalupski, chief executive and founder of Dream Finders Homes, a national homebuilding company based in Jacksonville. Zalupski was also appointed by DeSantis in 2023 to serve on the University of Florida Board of Trustees.

Dream Finders Homes, through its general counsel Rob Riva, has said it had no involvement in the swap. But Riva has not responded to follow-up emails from the Times asking if Zalupski was involved in his personal capacity, nor has Zalupski responded to repeated voicemails and text messages from reporters.

When Rep. Kendall pressed Hunter to set up a meeting with his client, he replied in a text: “Rep., I’m not trying to be difficult but am not authorized to release any information concerning this matter. That would include Mr. Zalupski’s phone number.”

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