{"id":77479,"date":"2026-08-26T21:51:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=77479"},"modified":"2026-08-26T21:51:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:51:34","slug":"grand-jury-desantis-misused-10m-to-oppose-amendment-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/08\/26\/grand-jury-desantis-misused-10m-to-oppose-amendment-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Jury: DeSantis Misused $10M to Oppose Amendment 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A state grand jury in Leon County, Florida, concluded that the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis &#8220;misappropriated&#8221; $10 million in taxpayer funds from a Medicaid settlement.<sup><\/sup> The money was diverted through a charity tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis and funneled into political action committees to oppose a 2024 ballot measure.<sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1581\" height=\"1054\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1581px) 100vw, 1581px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/desantis-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31581\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.5000542162142625;width:456px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Key Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The &#8220;Sophisticated Scheme&#8221;:<\/strong> The grand jury described the transfer as part of a coordinated effort to move taxpayer funds into political activities. $10 million from a settlement with Medicaid contractor Centene (which overbilled the state) was routed to the Hope Florida Foundation. From there, it was passed through third-party groups to political action committees, including Keep Florida Clean and the Republican Party of Florida.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Political Objective:<\/strong> The funds were used primarily to finance campaigns defeating <strong>Amendment 3<\/strong>, a 2024 Florida ballot initiative that aimed to legalize recreational marijuana.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>No Criminal Charges Recommended:<\/strong> Despite concluding that taxpayer money was misused, the grand jury reported there was &#8220;insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally&#8221;. Officials involved, including then-Chief of Staff James Uthmeier, denied responsibility or claimed a lack of memory regarding who ordered the transfer, creating an impediment to formal prosecution.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Response:<\/strong> The DeSantis administration maintained that the settlement funds were handled appropriately and argued that its campaign activities against ballot initiatives constituted public service announcements rather than political spending.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A state grand jury in Leon County, Florida, concluded that the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis &#8220;misappropriated&#8221; $10 million in taxpayer funds from a Medicaid settlement. The money was diverted&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyM1wvMDRcL2Rlc2FudGlzLTEud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzY4MyZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkdyYW5kIEp1cnk6IERlU2FudGlzIE1pc3VzZWQgJDEwTSB0byBPcHBvc2UgQW1lbmRtZW50IDMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.GHO99HgWWgGFXPQ0wbScrdtCC-3K8L3tpFgSojzikhcMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjNcLzA0XC9kZXNhbnRpcy0xLndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJHcmFuZCBKdXJ5OiBEZVNhbnRpcyBNaXN1c2VkICQxME0gdG8gT3Bwb3NlIEFtZW5kbWVudCAzIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.tIOfIRBfhToYncCdyG-eawL2x4E-_fPeU4DJghCCdosMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[15649,6454,16588,16589],"class_list":["post-77479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-amendment-3","tag-desantis","tag-grand-jury","tag-misused-10m"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77480,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77479\/revisions\/77480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}