A Florida grand jury has delivered a damning finding about Ron DeSantis administration’s handling of $10 million in taxpayer-linked funds: The money intended as part of a healthcare settlement for children was “misappropriated” and ultimately used for political activities, according to a bombshell report obtained by CBS News Miami.
The money was part of a $67 million settlement involving Centene Corp., Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, after the company was accused of overbilling the state for healthcare services provided to sick and underprivileged children.
But instead of simply returning the money to the state’s coffers, DeSantis’s team arranged for $10 million to go to Hope Florida Foundation, a welfare-assistance organization founded by Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife.
Then things got interesting.
According to the grand jury report, the $10 million was moved through a series of accounts before millions of dollars ultimately landed with political action committees.
The grand jury concluded that “these funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.”
The money trail is at the heart of what has become known as the “Hope Florida Scandal.”
In 2024, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration agreed to a settlement in which Centene would pay $57 million to the state for allegedly overcharging Medicaid. Another $10 million would go to Hope Florida.
Hope Florida was established with the stated goal of reducing Floridians’ dependence on government assistance by connecting people with private-sector resources.
But just days after the $10 million arrived, according to the grand jury’s findings, the money began moving elsewhere.
Two nonprofits requested $5 million grants from Hope Florida.
One was Secure Florida’s Future, a business advocacy organization associated with the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
The other was Save Our Society From Drugs, which advocates for stricter drug regulations, including restrictions involving marijuana.
The organizations then distributed money to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee run by James Uthmeier, who was DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time and is now Florida’s attorney general.
From there, the money moved into politics.
The Republican Party of Florida received $5 million, while another $1.2 million went to the Florida Freedom Fund, another PAC run by Uthmeier.
The grand jury found that the money was ultimately used to oppose Amendment 3, a ballot initiative seeking to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida.
So, in the span of a remarkably complicated money trail, funds connected to a Medicaid settlement involving healthcare for children ended up helping finance a political campaign.
That is precisely what the grand jury found troubling.
The grand jury spent months examining witness testimony and forensic evidence to determine how the $10 million wound up at Hope Florida—and whether the arrangement amounted to a crime.
But the jurors said they ran into a frustrating problem: Nobody would take responsibility.
The report said no witness could identify who made the decision to send the $10 million to Hope Florida.
“While we can’t prove who is responsible,” the grand jury concluded, “we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes.”
The jurors ultimately recommended changing Florida law rather than pursuing criminal charges.
Among their recommendations: Require money received by the state to be deposited into the General Revenue Fund and establish clearer rules governing how organizations such as Hope Florida can spend taxpayer funds.
They also called for stronger tracking requirements and consequences when public money is misused.
The DeSantis’ administration has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and dismissed the scandal as a politically motivated attack.
Alex Lanfranconi, the governor’s communications director, called the reported grand jury findings a “baseless smear” that has been “debunked over and over again.”
He also suggested that the publication of a confidential grand jury report could itself constitute a crime.
Uthmeier, now Florida’s attorney general, likewise dismissed the findings as a “politically motivated witch hunt” driven by Democrats and a “far-left Democrat state attorney.”
Uthmeier said he could not comment on the report but argued that, if the report was authentic, the fact that the grand jury did not find probable cause meant there was nothing to worry about.
Former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who is now a U.S. senator, also defended her role.
Moody said her office was not involved in negotiating the original settlement or determining how the money would ultimately be spent.
She said it was “standard practice” for her office to approve the settlement.
“The AG’s office had no knowledge of how funds would be spent or played any role in how Hope Florida, AHCA, or the legislature would spend the settlement money,” Moody wrote on X.
The grand jury did not recommend criminal charges because it could not establish who made the original decision. But its findings leave behind a politically explosive question: How did $10 million connected to a Medicaid settlement for alleged overbilling end up flowing through nonprofits and into political committees?
The jurors called on Florida lawmakers to rewrite the rules so the same thing cannot happen again.
That may be the most revealing part of the entire report.
