A Florida state grand jury found that the DeSantis administration “misappropriated” $10 million in taxpayer money when it diverted funds from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, according to a sealed report obtained by CBS News Miami. The grand jury wrote that the transfer was “part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” The report said the money was supposed to be used to provide health insurance for poor children.
The grand jury said the funds were hastily passed through multiple organizations before landing in the bank accounts of two political action committees and the Republican Party of Florida. Those funds were then used in 2024 to defeat Amendment 3, the citizen initiative to legalize marijuana in Florida, the report stated.
“Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally,” the report concluded. “Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida… or had any memory of who made it.”
Grand jury report said the $10 million moved quickly from Hope Florida into political committees
The grand jury added, “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 identified James Uthmeier, then the governor’s chief of staff and now Florida’s attorney general, as the nexus for much of the activity around the transfer. “We find that James Uthmeier, as the Governor’s Chief of Staff at the time of settlement, was in a position of authority over those involved in settling …,” the grand jury wrote.
Testimony identified him as having involvement in directing the money after it went to Hope Florida, the report said. Testimony also revealed that Uthmeier’s Keep Florida Clean PAC was the prime recipient of the majority of the $10 million, according to the report.
The grand jury also concluded that Ashley Moody, who was attorney general at the time, was aware of the plans to divert the $10 million to Hope Florida and “authorized” her former chief deputy, John Guard, to sign the settlement agreement. The grand jury noted that Guard signed the settlement “without conducting his due diligence to ensure the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds.”
Guard, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis later appointed to a state appeals court, wrote that requests for the Department of Legal Affairs to join settlements were not uncommon and that this settlement was handled in the ordinary course by the department. Moody, appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2025 by DeSantis, has refused repeated requests for comment about Hope Florida, CBS News Miami reported. She is up for election in November.
DeSantis has also avoided publicly answering questions about what he knew of the diversion and who in his administration made the decision to send the $10 million to Hope Florida, the article stated.
On Wednesday, DeSantis was asked about Hope Florida during a news conference and said, “I wasn’t involved in the settlement agreement, but I’m very happy with how everything was done.” He continued to call it a “hoax.” Video has separately shown DeSantis fleeing a Trump fund question. Neither Moody, DeSantis, nor Uthmeier was called before the Tallahassee grand jury to testify, the report indicated.
Florida officials learned in 2021 that health care company Centene had been overbilling the state for prescription drugs under the Florida Healthy Kids program. Florida’s share was calculated to be $67,048,611.
A draft settlement offering to repay the $67 million was first sent to Florida officials on July 14, 2021. The grand jury noted that the state did not resolve the matter for years, then, in early September 2024, contacted Centene and said it wanted to settle immediately.
On Sept. 12, 2024, the state altered the agreement so that $5 million would go to the Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit set up to help fund first lady Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida initiative. The next day, the state changed the agreement again, lowering the amount returned to Florida taxpayers to $57 million and increasing the amount going to Hope Florida to $10 million. No reason was given as to why the amount doubled, the report said.
Centene’s lawyers were concerned about any diversion of money, especially since it was going to a charity aligned with the governor’s wife, the grand jury report stated. Centene demanded wording making it clear it was being directed by the Florida attorney general to send the $10 million to Hope Florida.
Moody did not want to be responsible, according to the report. Guard said he had “reservations” about the deal and that “esoterically” he agreed the $10 million was taxpayer money and “belonged to the state of Florida.”
Guard also explained that Florida statutes require the legislature to decide how money is spent, the grand jury report said. He raised political concerns with Moody because he knew the deal would be viewed by the legislature as a constraint on their spending authority.
The settlement was rewritten so that DeSantis’ Agency for Health Care Administration, rather than the attorney general, was directing Centene to send $10 million to Hope Florida. After consulting Moody, she authorized Guard to sign the settlement in its final form, the grand jury wrote.
AHCA Secretary Jason Weida signed the agreement and was one of the key negotiators with Centene in September 2024, emails showed, according to the report. Weida testified that he does not recall who suggested Hope Florida should receive the $10 million.
He said he thought it was acceptable for Centene to “donate” $10 million to Hope Florida, calling it a bonus. The grand jury rejected that explanation. “We find that the full Centene settlement was taxpayer reimbursement,” the grand jury wrote. “We reject Agency for Healthcare Administration Secretary Jason Weida’s explanation that $10 million was a ‘bonus.’”
The grand jury said the settlement itself seemed rushed after years of inactivity and that Centene was required to wire the $10 million to Hope Florida within seven days, while it was allowed more than a year to repay the remaining $57 million. “We believe the rush was due to the impending election which was just 45 days away,” the report stated. There was no press release by AHCA or the Governor’s Office and no notification to the Legislature, the grand jury found.
On Oct. 4, 2024, Centene transferred the $10 million into the Hope Florida Foundation account. Foundation chair Joshua Hay testified that the largest prior donation had been $100,000. He said he soon learned the foundation would receive two $5 million grant proposals. Within 25 days of Hope Florida receiving the money, it was gone, the report said. Hay testified he assumed the money was needed to assist hurricane victims. He told the grand jury, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The grand jury said it could not get evidence to back claims that Hope Florida had a high success rate serving children in need. Other Florida groups that say they reach children have faced questions over a civics nonprofit’s claimed school visits. The grand jury also said Uthmeier contacted Amy Ronshausen of Save Our Society from Drugs and told her she should apply for a grant from Hope Florida. Mark Wilson of Secure Florida’s Future submitted a $5 million proposal.
Hope Florida approved both grants. A forensic accountant who analyzed bank records for the grand jury found that Uthmeier’s PAC received a total of $8.5 million from those groups. The PAC then sent $7 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.23 million to another PAC Uthmeier chaired, the Florida Freedom Fund, the report stated.
Both grant applications stated the money would not be used for political purposes, the grand jury said, yet the money was almost immediately transferred into Uthmeier’s political committee. The grand jury recommended that the Florida Legislature enact a law requiring any monies received by the state from any source to be deposited into the General Fund, with consequences for violations. “As taxpayer money,” the grand jury found, “it should have been treated as such instead of being allocated for partisan political purposes and without transparency.”
Published: Aug 29, 2026 08:00 am