{"id":332050,"date":"2026-07-07T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332050\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:34:14","slug":"former-tallahassee-mayor-andrew-gillum-arrested-on-drug-charges-in-alabama-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332050\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum arrested on drug charges in Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Gillum<\/a>, the former Tallahassee mayor who narrowly lost his bid for Florida governor in 2018, was recently arrested in southern Alabama on drug-related charges.<\/p>\n

Gillum, 46, was arrested July 2 by police in Daphne, Alabama, a small town outside Mobile, Alabama, on charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a felony, and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors.<\/p>\n

Patrol officers pulled him over around 10:45 p.m. for driving erratically on U.S. Highway 98, Daphne Police Department Chief Brian Gulsby said in a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the officers saw a glass pipe on the center console of the vehicle,\u201d Gulsby said. \u201cThis led to a probable cause search of the vehicle. Several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine were recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent headlines: Andrew Gillum’s driver’s license suspended after school zone speeding fines<\/a><\/p>\n

Gillum was booked into the Baldwin County jail the night of his arrest and released the following day. His arrest, which was first reported by TMZ, marked the second time he has been linked to meth since his defeat in the governor’s race.<\/p>\n

He was elected to the city commission in 2003 and as mayor in 2014, serving a single term. In 2018, he pulled off an upset win<\/a> in the Democratic primary for Florida governor but lost in the general election<\/a> to Ron DeSantis, then a former congressman.<\/p>\n

in 2020, he was found passed out in a Miami hotel<\/a> room with a male escort who was suffering from a suspected drug overdose. Small baggies of suspected crystal methamphetamine were found in the room, but Gillum denied using drugs and no charges were filed.<\/p>\n

Gillum publicly apologized and went off to rehab for alcohol abuse, but his political career never recovered. He did not immediately respond to a text message from the Democrat.<\/p>\n

In 2022, he and a close adviser were arrested in a long-running FBI public corruption probe<\/a> that led to earlier convictions against another former Tallahassee mayor, Scott Maddox<\/a>, and two others.<\/p>\n

The charges were dropped in 2023 after his trial at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee ended with an acquittal on one count and a deadlock on others. He went on to co-host the podcast \u201cNative Land Pod,\u201d which won an NAACP Image Award in 2025.<\/p>\n

(This story has been updated with additional context).<\/p>\n

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum arrested on drug charges in Alabama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Gillum, the former Tallahassee mayor who narrowly lost his bid for Florida governor in 2018, was recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[8173,59493,2214,101667,136917,1072,3291,17485,31068,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-332050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-alabama","tag-andrew-gillum","tag-charges","tag-daphne","tag-daphne-police-department","tag-drug-paraphernalia","tag-florida-governor","tag-mobile","tag-possession-of-a-controlled-substance","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332050","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=332050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}