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<\/a>Florida \u2014<\/p>\nFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier have pushed back against allegations from a CBS Miami report claiming millions of taxpayer dollars from a Medicaid settlement were diverted to a charity led by First Lady Casey DeSantis and later used for political purposes. <\/p>\n
CBS Miami’s report, which obtained a copy of the grand jury\u2019s presentment, stated that the jury did not recommend criminal charges but criticized the handling of $10 million intended for healthcare for poor children. <\/p>\n
In the grand jury report obtained by CBS Miami, the jury members found that the appropriation of $10 million to oppose two proposed amendments in 2024 was “part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.”<\/p>\n
WESH 2 Investigate’s review of IRS Form 990 tax filings shows Hope Florida gave $ 5 million each to groups called “Secure Florida’s Future” and “Save Our Society From Drugs.”<\/p>\n
The two groups then sent multiple contributions totaling roughly $ 10 million to a political committee called “Keep Florida Clean,” chaired by Uthmeier, whose job was to make sure the cannabis and abortion amendments failed. It worked.<\/p>\n
Gov. DeSantis strongly denied the allegations during a press conference.<\/p>\n
“There was no diversion of any Medicaid funds. It was a private settlement where a company made a private contribution to a DSO affiliated with one of the state agencies. And so, don’t lie, don’t get it wrong,” DeSantis said. <\/p>\n
DeSantis clarified that the Medicaid settlement funds were separate from what he referred to as a $10 million “donation” to Hope Florida. <\/p>\n
However, he did not address why the $10 million was routed through two political committees and ultimately ended up with a committee called “Keep Florida Clean,” chaired by James Uthmeier, who was then DeSantis\u2019s chief of staff and later appointed attorney general. <\/p>\n
According to the CBS Miami report, the funds were used for ads, mailers, and other campaign efforts opposing two proposed amendments in 2024: one for recreational marijuana and another for abortion rights. Both measures failed. <\/p>\n
According to the report obtained by CBS Miami, the grand jury concluded, “Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally. Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida.”<\/p>\n
Democratic leaders are calling for a more extensive investigation into the matter. <\/p>\n
Attorney General Uthmeier, who was named in the grand jury report as being in a position of authority during the settlement, addressed the controversy during an appearance in The Villages. <\/p>\n
He said, “I\u2019m not allowed under Florida law to comment on the report, so I can\u2019t say if it\u2019s true or not, but if it is indeed true, it shows a couple of things: first, there was no probable cause found that nobody did anything wrong. If it is true and it shows that the Democrats had to collude with the press to break the law to release a document that\u2019s not allowed to be released under the law just to show that a far-left Democrat state attorney is incompetent, then I don\u2019t think we have anything to worry about here.”<\/p>\n
Uthmeier dismissed the allegations as a “hoax” and denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
“While we can’t prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes and we would like to see changes made to prevent this from happening again,” the grand jury report also says.<\/p>\n
Democratic candidate for governor, David Jolly, is demanding it, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s to ensure that any Medicaid money that may be recovered in future settlements be directed to general revenue and cannot be laundered or misdirected as we saw in the case of Hope Florida.\u201d <\/p>\n
Florida law says the disbursement of any funds from a legal settlement must be approved by the legislature. <\/p>\n
The governor said Thursday the $10 million that went to Hope Florida was a \u201cdonation\u201d and not subject to lawmaker approval. <\/p>\n
DeSantis called it “legally sound, appropriate, and consistent with the state’s mission.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grand jury finds DeSantis administration misappropriated $10M to Hope Florida, report says Florida \u2014 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4721,17907,31877,153719,112510,28,12337,30,7918,29,1385,1384,1386,2159,9867,5530,153720,115958],"class_list":["post-383357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-allegation","tag-amendment","tag-attorney-general-james-uthmeier","tag-cbs-miami-report","tag-desantis-administration","tag-florida","tag-florida-gov-ron-desantis","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-law","tag-florida-news","tag-grand-jury","tag-hope-florida","tag-medicaid-settlement","tag-money","tag-political-committee","tag-press-conference","tag-private-settlement","tag-taxpayer-dollar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383357","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=383357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}