Florida Grand Jury Finds DeSantis Administration Misappropriated $10M in Medicaid Money, No Charges Filed

A Leon County grand jury has concluded that Governor Ron DeSantis's administration ran what it called a "sophisticated scheme" to divert $10 million in taxpayer money into political activity, but stopped short of recommending charges against anyone.

The sealed report, dated January 28, 2026, was obtained and published by CBS News Miami on August 26. It comes after more than a year of legislative hearings, dueling investigations, and public sparring over what's become known in Tallahassee as the Hope Florida scandal.

How the money moved

The money started as part of a $67 million settlement between the state and Centene Corporation, the company that administers Florida's Medicaid program, over allegations it overbilled the state for children's health services, according to the grand jury report cited by CBS News and The New Republic. In February 2023, Centene offered to pay the full $67,048,611.

More than a year and a half later, on September 27, 2024, state officials split that number: $57 million to Florida, and $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation, the charitable arm of an initiative started by First Lady Casey DeSantis in 2021 to move people off government assistance.

According to the grand jury, the Foundation didn't hold onto the money. Within days it moved $5 million each to two nonprofits, Secure Florida's Future and Save Our Society From Drugs, neither of which is required to disclose detailed financials, the report says. Those groups then sent $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee run by James Uthmeier, who was DeSantis's chief of staff at the time and is now Florida's attorney general.

Keep Florida Clean then sent $9 million to the Republican Party of Florida and another $1.23 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, another Uthmeier-chaired committee, according to WLRN. Both committees worked to defeat two November 2024 ballot measures: one that would have enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution, and one that would have legalized recreational marijuana. Both got majority support from voters but fell short of the 60% threshold Florida requires to amend its constitution.

"Nobody will take responsibility"

The grand jury's core finding isn't just that the money moved. It's that nobody involved would own the decision.

"Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida," the report states, according to CBS News Miami. "This decision was the original misappropriation, and no witness would take responsibility for making the decision or had any memory of who made it."

That absence of an identifiable decision-maker is why, despite concluding the funds were misappropriated, the jury wrote it found "insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally." The report explicitly says this created "an impediment to criminal prosecution."

The jury did name names when it came to authority, not culpability. It found Uthmeier, as DeSantis's chief of staff at the time, was "in a position of authority over those involved in settling" with Centene, and that testimony showed his involvement in directing money after it reached Hope Florida, according to CBS News. It also found that then-Attorney General Ashley Moody, now a U.S. senator from Florida, was aware of the plan to route money to Hope Florida and authorized her chief deputy, John Guard, to sign the settlement without conducting due diligence. Guard, whom DeSantis appointed to a state appeals court in January, told CBS News Miami such settlement requests "weren't uncommon" and that this one "was handled in the ordinary course," but declined further comment as a sitting judge.

DeSantis pushes back hard

Asked about the findings Thursday, DeSantis didn't budge. He called the settlement "legally sound" and "appropriate," said "there was no diversion of any Medicaid funds," and argued the entire controversy was an attempt "to smear the first lady of Florida, my wife." He noted the report mentions Casey DeSantis only once, describing Hope Florida as an initiative she championed, and said that shows she "wasn't involved in any of this."

DeSantis's communications director, Alex Lanfranconi, went further, calling the report's release "the only crime committed here" and insisting "this baseless smear has been debunked over and over again," according to Florida Politics. Uthmeier, campaigning in The Villages, called the whole matter "a politically motivated witch hunt driven by the Democrats and a far-left Democrat state attorney in Tallahassee."

That framing runs into a documented complication. The investigation didn't originate with Democrats or a Democratic prosecutor. It was Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade of Pensacola who led the House hearings that triggered the grand jury proceedings, according to Florida Politics and WLRN. Andrade is a member of DeSantis's own party.

What happens now

Senate Democratic Caucus leader Tracie Davis said she'll file legislation next session aimed at closing accountability gaps the report identified, calling the episode "an egregious abuse of power." David Jolly, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Republican congressman, went further, telling reporters it was "a highly orchestrated scheme to launder Medicaid money from childrens' health services into the First Lady's charity" and calling it "a violation of the law." That's Jolly's characterization; the grand jury itself stopped short of alleging a provable crime by any specific person.

DeSantis is term-limited and not seeking reelection. Uthmeier is running for a full term as attorney general in November, and Moody is a sitting U.S. senator. Whether the leak of the sealed report draws its own investigation, and whether the Legislature actually passes new safeguards on settlement funds next session, remains unresolved.