{"id":331977,"date":"2026-07-07T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/331977\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:21:07","slug":"former-florida-candidate-andrew-gillum-arrested-on-drug-charges-in-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/331977\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Florida candidate Andrew Gillum arrested on drug charges in Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SARASOTA, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\">WWSB<\/a>) &#8211; Former Tallahassee mayor and one-time Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested on drug charges in Alabama.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Daphne, Alabama, Police Department said Gillum was pulled over July 2 at about 10:45 p.m. on U.S. Highway 98 by patrol officers after they observed him driving erratically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One of the officers saw a glass pipe on the center console of the vehicle, leading to a probable cause search of his car, Police Chief Brian Gulsby said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police say several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine were recovered. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gillum was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He was booked into the Daphne City Jail and later transported to the Baldwin County Correctional Facility. He has since been released, jail records show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gillum served as Tallahassee mayor from 2014-2018. He was also the Democratic challenger to Ron DeSantis during the 2018 General Election. He nearly won that election, obtaining 49.2% of the vote compared to the governor\u2019s 49.6%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In the primary election for that race, Gillum narrowly defeated former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, who is now running for lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In March of 2020, after his election loss, Gillum was found unresponsive in a Miami Beach hotel room where authorities found baggies of suspected crystal methamphetamine. At the time, Gillum admitted to being drunk but denied using meth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2019, the Florida Commission on Ethics found probable cause that Gillum violated state ethics laws when he accepted gifts during out-of-town excursions with lobbyists and vendors and failed to report them. This included tickets to a performance of the musical \u201cHamilton.\u201d A settlement of $5,000 was agreed to in that case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2022, he was indicted on multiple federal charges connected to campaign contribution fraud before and during his 2018 run for governor of Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2023, he was found not guilty of lying to the FBI, and the remaining 18 charges against him were ultimately dropped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8212; Information from WCTV-TV and The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Former Tallahassee mayor and one-time Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[8173,65297,692,101667,5558,136940,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-331977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-alabama","tag-andrew","tag-arrest","tag-daphne","tag-drugs","tag-gillum","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}