Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration “misappropriated” $10 million in taxpayer money by diverting it to a charity tied to his wife, according to a leaked Florida grand jury report that took a sharply critical view of the dealings.
The report also said grand jurors found insufficient evidence to levy charges. But it intensified a controversy over the investigation into the fund-raising arm of Hope Florida, the charity that the first lady, Casey DeSantis, started in 2021. The charity’s goal is to keep families off public assistance by connecting them with churches and aid groups.
In 2024, the charity’s fund-raising arm, the Hope Florida Foundation, received $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement. It was quickly redirected to political committees backing a campaign led by the governor against a ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana.
The transactions amounted to misuse of public funds as “part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities,” the grand jury found in its report, which was published online by CBS News Miami on Wednesday. The report was completed in January but has been kept secret since.
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The New York Times could not independently verify the document, but none of the officials named in it have questioned its veracity. Instead, they have decried that the report was leaked despite still being under court seal.
Asked about the report at an event on Thursday, Mr. DeSantis called its finding that funds were misappropriated “a lie.”
“Obviously, there was a crime committed to leak it,” he told reporters in Lake City, Fla., about the report.
The matter involved key figures in Florida’s state government, and the resulting scandal hurt both Mr. and Ms. DeSantis politically. Ms. DeSantis had made the Hope Florida initiative central to her public persona; it was seen as a potential launchpad for a campaign to succeed her term-limited husband. In the end, she did not run, and Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, did not endorse anyone in the G.O.P. primary for governor.
According to the report, several witnesses said that they could not recall who directed the $10 million to go to the Hope Florida Foundation.
“While we can’t prove who is responsible,” the report said, “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.”
Prosecutors impanel grand juries to hear witness testimony and determine whether there is enough evidence for a criminal indictment. While grand juries in Florida are secret, their reports are typically made public, even if they reach conclusions other than an indictment.
People named in such reports may ask a judge to keep them secret. It is unclear if that is why this report has remained under seal.
Jack Campbell, the Democratic state attorney for Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, the capital, impaneled the grand jury. In March, he declined to comment on the existence of the report. On Thursday, his office reiterated in a statement that “the records are confidential as part of an investigation.”
The outcome of the investigation was not unusual in a case involving government deals, said Joseph M. Centorino, a former public corruption prosecutor in Miami who was not involved in the investigation. Proving criminal intent is difficult when multiple government officials — especially lawyers — previously approved a suspicious deal, he said.
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“People relying on the advice of attorneys provides a built-in defense” in such cases, he said.
James Uthmeier, who was Mr. DeSantis’s chief of staff at the time and is now the state’s Republican attorney general, was central to the transactions investigated by the grand jury. Also involved, though less directly, was Ashley Moody, who was then the attorney general and is now the state’s junior Republican U.S. senator.
Both Mr. Uthmeier and Ms. Moody were appointed by Mr. DeSantis and now are seeking to be elected on their own merits in November. Both have denied wrongdoing.
“The reports confirm what we have said all along,” Will O’Grady, a spokesman for Ms. Moody, said in a statement on Wednesday. He added: “Neither the Department of Legal Affairs nor the former attorney general had knowledge of how the settlement money would be spent. Attempts to characterize this any other way are disingenuous.”
Asked about the report at an event on Thursday, Mr. Uthmeier said he was not allowed to talk about it. He suggested without evidence that Democrats had been behind the leaked report.
Mr. Uthmeier also called the investigation a “hoax.”
“Nobody did anything wrong here,” he told reporters in The Villages, Fla. “There was not even probable cause to move forward.”
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Democrats seized on the report, with Mr. Uthmeier’s and Ms. Moody’s election rivals calling for their resignations. David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, said he would pursue reopening the investigation if he were elected.
The investigation centered on a $10 million payment that the Hope Florida Foundation received in 2024 from Centene, a Medicaid contractor that had overbilled and settled with the DeSantis administration. The grand jury found that Ms. Moody’s office knew of the payment and that her chief deputy at the time approved it “without conducting his due diligence to ensure the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds.”
Before 2024, the Hope Florida Foundation had raised only about $2 million over three years.
Soon after receiving the $10 million windfall, the foundation distributed it to two nonprofit political committees known as “dark money” groups, which do not have to release detailed financial reports. The groups then routed $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee created to oppose legalized marijuana.
Then, Keep Florida Clean sent $10.5 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.1 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, Mr. DeSantis’s PAC. Both those groups also spent money opposing the marijuana measure. Although most voters supported the amendment in November 2024, it failed to get the 60 percent of votes needed to pass.
At the time, Mr. Uthmeier ran both Keep Florida Clean and the Florida Freedom Fund.
The report found that Mr. Uthmeier “was in a position of authority over those involved in settling” with Centene and that witnesses identified him “as having involvement” in directing the money after it went to the foundation.
But the report noted that no witnesses had admitted directing the money to go to the foundation in the first place, or identified who did.
The report also said grand jurors found insufficient evidence to levy charges. But it intensified a controversy over the investigation into the fund-raising arm of Hope Florida, the charity that the first lady, Casey DeSantis, started in 2021. The charity’s goal is to keep families off public assistance by connecting them with churches and aid groups.
In 2024, the charity’s fund-raising arm, the Hope Florida Foundation, received $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement. It was quickly redirected to political committees backing a campaign led by the governor against a ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana.
The transactions amounted to misuse of public funds as “part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities,” the grand jury found in its report, which was published online by CBS News Miami on Wednesday. The report was completed in January but has been kept secret since.
Advertisement
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The New York Times could not independently verify the document, but none of the officials named in it have questioned its veracity. Instead, they have decried that the report was leaked despite still being under court seal.
Asked about the report at an event on Thursday, Mr. DeSantis called its finding that funds were misappropriated “a lie.”
“Obviously, there was a crime committed to leak it,” he told reporters in Lake City, Fla., about the report.
The matter involved key figures in Florida’s state government, and the resulting scandal hurt both Mr. and Ms. DeSantis politically. Ms. DeSantis had made the Hope Florida initiative central to her public persona; it was seen as a potential launchpad for a campaign to succeed her term-limited husband. In the end, she did not run, and Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, did not endorse anyone in the G.O.P. primary for governor.
According to the report, several witnesses said that they could not recall who directed the $10 million to go to the Hope Florida Foundation.
“While we can’t prove who is responsible,” the report said, “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.”
Prosecutors impanel grand juries to hear witness testimony and determine whether there is enough evidence for a criminal indictment. While grand juries in Florida are secret, their reports are typically made public, even if they reach conclusions other than an indictment.
People named in such reports may ask a judge to keep them secret. It is unclear if that is why this report has remained under seal.
Jack Campbell, the Democratic state attorney for Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, the capital, impaneled the grand jury. In March, he declined to comment on the existence of the report. On Thursday, his office reiterated in a statement that “the records are confidential as part of an investigation.”
The outcome of the investigation was not unusual in a case involving government deals, said Joseph M. Centorino, a former public corruption prosecutor in Miami who was not involved in the investigation. Proving criminal intent is difficult when multiple government officials — especially lawyers — previously approved a suspicious deal, he said.
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“People relying on the advice of attorneys provides a built-in defense” in such cases, he said.
James Uthmeier, who was Mr. DeSantis’s chief of staff at the time and is now the state’s Republican attorney general, was central to the transactions investigated by the grand jury. Also involved, though less directly, was Ashley Moody, who was then the attorney general and is now the state’s junior Republican U.S. senator.
Both Mr. Uthmeier and Ms. Moody were appointed by Mr. DeSantis and now are seeking to be elected on their own merits in November. Both have denied wrongdoing.
“The reports confirm what we have said all along,” Will O’Grady, a spokesman for Ms. Moody, said in a statement on Wednesday. He added: “Neither the Department of Legal Affairs nor the former attorney general had knowledge of how the settlement money would be spent. Attempts to characterize this any other way are disingenuous.”
Asked about the report at an event on Thursday, Mr. Uthmeier said he was not allowed to talk about it. He suggested without evidence that Democrats had been behind the leaked report.
Mr. Uthmeier also called the investigation a “hoax.”
“Nobody did anything wrong here,” he told reporters in The Villages, Fla. “There was not even probable cause to move forward.”
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Democrats seized on the report, with Mr. Uthmeier’s and Ms. Moody’s election rivals calling for their resignations. David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, said he would pursue reopening the investigation if he were elected.
The investigation centered on a $10 million payment that the Hope Florida Foundation received in 2024 from Centene, a Medicaid contractor that had overbilled and settled with the DeSantis administration. The grand jury found that Ms. Moody’s office knew of the payment and that her chief deputy at the time approved it “without conducting his due diligence to ensure the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds.”
Before 2024, the Hope Florida Foundation had raised only about $2 million over three years.
Soon after receiving the $10 million windfall, the foundation distributed it to two nonprofit political committees known as “dark money” groups, which do not have to release detailed financial reports. The groups then routed $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee created to oppose legalized marijuana.
Then, Keep Florida Clean sent $10.5 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.1 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, Mr. DeSantis’s PAC. Both those groups also spent money opposing the marijuana measure. Although most voters supported the amendment in November 2024, it failed to get the 60 percent of votes needed to pass.
At the time, Mr. Uthmeier ran both Keep Florida Clean and the Florida Freedom Fund.
The report found that Mr. Uthmeier “was in a position of authority over those involved in settling” with Centene and that witnesses identified him “as having involvement” in directing the money after it went to the foundation.
But the report noted that no witnesses had admitted directing the money to go to the foundation in the first place, or identified who did.
