A Florida grand jury has handed down a rather awkward verdict for the DeSantis administration: $10 million in taxpayer money was misappropriated and ultimately used for political purposes, CBS News reports. Gee, who didn’t see that coming?
The catch? After finding what it described as serious wrongdoing, the grand jury concluded it didn't have enough evidence to criminally charge anyone.
According to the report obtained by CBS Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede, the money originated with a roughly $67 million Medicaid settlement involving Centene, a company accused of overbilling Florida. The money was supposed to reimburse Florida taxpayers, but in September 2024, the state suddenly altered the settlement so that $10 million would go to the Hope Florida Foundation, an organization associated with First Lady Casey DeSantis' initiative.
And the timing was very interesting, to say the least. The state had reportedly been sitting on the settlement for around three years. But then, in September 2024, the deal suddenly moved at lightning speed. One day, the agreement allocated $5 million to Hope Florida. The next day, that amount suddenly doubled to $10 million. The grand jury said it found no explanation for why the charity's share suddenly increased.
There was also a bit of a “Who, me?” situation when investigators tried to determine who actually made the decision.
Then-Attorney General Ashley Moody's office reportedly had concerns about directing taxpayer money to Hope Florida, particularly because state law gives the Legislature authority over spending. The settlement was subsequently rewritten so that the Agency for Health Care Administration, rather than the attorney general, would direct the $10 million payment.
Jason Weida, who headed AHCA at the time and signed the agreement, characterized the $10 million as essentially a bonus on top of what Centene owed the state. The grand jury wasn't buying it, though. It concluded that the entire settlement represented money owed to Florida taxpayers, meaning the $10 million wasn't some generous corporate tip jar.
Once the money reached Hope Florida, things got even more interesting.
Within roughly a month, the foundation handed out the entire $10 million in two $5 million grants. Those grants then flowed through other organizations and ultimately into political committees. One of those committees, Keep Florida Clean, received $8.5 million and subsequently sent $7 million to the Republican Party of Florida. Another $1.23 million went to a political committee associated with current Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
The money was ultimately used in the 2024 campaign against Amendment 3, the ballot initiative that would have legalized recreational marijuana in Florida. In other words, money the grand jury regarded as taxpayer reimbursement took a rather scenic route through nonprofit organizations before showing up in politics.
Perhaps the most astonishing part is how little anyone apparently questioned the transactions.
Joshua Hay, who chaired the Hope Florida Foundation, testified that he approved sending the money to political committees without asking many questions because he believed it was intended to help hurricane victims. He essentially took the paperwork at face value.
The grand jury also found that grant applications misrepresented the intended use of the money, saying it wouldn't be used for political purposes even though much of it eventually ended up there.
And then there's the grand jury's assessment concerning Hope Florida itself. Despite the program's prominent profile, investigators said they couldn't find evidence to support some of the glowing claims about its success. Some witnesses apparently couldn't even clearly explain what the organization actually did, where it operated, or how it functioned. Which is not exactly the glowing nonprofit review one hopes to receive from a grand jury.
The report also calls into question Uthmeier's role. The grand jury identified him as being in a position of authority over much of what happened to the money after it reached Hope Florida. It also said then-Attorney General Moody knew about the diversion and authorized her chief deputy to sign the settlement.
But despite all of those findings, nobody was charged.
The grand jury said it could see that taxpayer money had been misused for political purposes, but couldn't establish who was ultimately responsible for making the decision. Several officials essentially couldn't—or wouldn't—remember who came up with the idea.
As the grand jury put it, nobody would take responsibility for deciding that $10 million in taxpayer money should go to Hope Florida.
Convenient memory loss, huh?
The grand jury ultimately recommended that Florida lawmakers tighten the rules governing taxpayer money, including requiring money received by the state to go into the General Fund and imposing penalties for improperly diverting public funds.
So the bottom line is pretty extraordinary: the grand jury concluded that $10 million in taxpayer money was misappropriated and used for political purposes, but couldn't identify anyone it could prosecute.
That's one hell of a bureaucratic magic trick: the money disappeared into politics, the grand jury found wrongdoing, and somehow nobody did it.
