{"id":390445,"date":"2026-09-04T16:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/390445\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T16:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:14:12","slug":"orange-county-judge-resigns-after-probe-into-political-donations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/390445\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County judge resigns after probe into political donations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d1amtwe3rk8lybf4.jpg\" alt=\"Judge resigns after investigation into campaign contributions\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-892ef6a8=\"\"\/>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/d1amtwe3rk8lybf4.jpg\" alt=\"Judge resigns after investigation into campaign contributions\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"vod-poster-image vod-poster-image--embedded\" data-v-5173a8d8=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. &#8211; Orange County judge Diana Tennis is stepping down from the bench following an investigation into thousands of dollars in political donations.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WOFL\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Judge Diana Tennis, who oversaw family court cases in Orange and Osceola counties, is resigning Friday.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A 2024 complaint brought by Apopka resident Devo Seereeram and a subsequent investigation revealed Tennis made 913 political contributions totaling more than $29,000 between January 2017 and January 2021.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The donations went to left-leaning campaigns and political action committees, including ActBlue, Emily\u2019s List, the Ditch Fund and the DCC.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Judicial Qualifications Commission filings show Tennis did not contest the findings, expressed remorse and explained she believed rules only barred contributions to state races.<\/p>\n<p> Supreme Court sanction recommendation <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WOFL\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">It remains unclear if the Florida Supreme Court will execute formal penalties now that Tennis is stepping down.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The Judicial Qualifications Commission initially recommended a public reprimand, but the Supreme Court upgraded the proposal to include a fine and suspension.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Because those sanctions remain held up in court, Tennis has not faced official penalties.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Her office did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this story was gathered from a FOX 35 investigation by Investigative Reporter Marie Edinger, who reviewed Florida Supreme Court filings and Judicial Qualifications Commission records, as well as an interview with complainant Devo Seereeram.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/orange-county\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Orange County News<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/politics\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. &#8211; Orange County judge Diana Tennis is stepping down from the bench following an investigation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[47,115,1335,139,141,140,99,628],"class_list":["post-390445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390445","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=390445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}