Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis, still remain entangled in a protracted state-level grand jury investigation into allegations of corruption, money laundering, and misuse of public funds. While the US Department of Justice has cleared the Governor and his wife and his former Chief of Staff who is now the appointed Florida State Attorney General James Uthmeier the state inquiry continues.
Florida state prosecutors continue to examine the diversion of $10 million out of a $67 million 2024 Medicaid settlement between Florida and contractor Centene, even as the separate federal inquiry was quietly dismissed without charges earlier this year. That amount was diverted to the Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit closely tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis. The Medicare funds were earmarked for the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped.
According to a major December 2025 Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times investigation, this $10 million was only part of a much larger scheme: the DeSantis administration diverted at least $36.2 million in taxpayer resources originally earmarked for healthcare, child welfare, opioid recovery, and aid to vulnerable Floridians—including children—to fund advertising campaigns against various state wide 2024 ballot measures the Governor opposed.
Critics, including Republican State Rep. Alex Andrade of Pensacola, have alleged corruption, money laundering, and misuse of public funds. They claim the funds were improperly routed through the foundation to political committees opposing the 2024 Florida Amendment 3 (marijuana legalization initiative).
Desantis supports defend this as a form of public patronage—the DeSantis team called the $10 million transfer a “cherry on top” to a good cause (the Hope Florida charity), but really it was taxpayer money being secretly used to help political goals—like fighting against the marijuana legalization ballot measure (Amendment 3). Many say it treats everyday Floridians like they’re too gullible or naive to notice the real purpose behind the charity cover.
Instead of returning the money to state revenues or Medicaid programs, nearly all of the $10 million was funneled to a political committee controlled by James Uthmeier—then DeSantis’s chief of staff and now Florida’s Attorney General. The state eventually reimbursed the federal government for the full amount in an “abundance of caution,” after acknowledging it had been treated as Medicaid funds that may be how the Governor and his wife and their top political operative avoided a Federal criminal indictment.
In October 2025, Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell—a Democrat in a heavily Republican area—convened a grand jury in Tallahassee to investigate the alleged diversion of $10 million from the 2024 Centene Medicaid settlement through the Hope Florida Foundation.
The grand jury heard testimony over multiple days from key witnesses, including former Hope Florida Foundation president Joshua Hay and longtime DeSantis staffer Kate Strickland.
The grand jury, instead of returning indictments or “true bills” that would have led to criminal charges, opted for a presentment around February 25, 2026.
A presentment is a record that is supposed to be public but remains sealed and effectively confidential. It allows grand jurors to criticize misconduct, highlight problems, or recommend reforms when the evidence falls short of criminal charges. This path avoids formal prosecution while still producing an official—though currently hidden—record of their concerns.
On March 25, 2026, Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh granted limited intervention to transparency watchdogs, including the Florida Trident and its parent organization, the Florida Center for Government Accountability, giving them the right to argue for public disclosure and challenge the secrecy surrounding the presentment.
Further reporting from March 26–28, primarily by the Tampa Bay Times and the Florida Trident, confirms the presentment remains unreleased amid ongoing stonewalling by State Attorney Jack Campbell’s office.
The judge’s pointed observation that Campbell’s repeated use of exemptions “appears to tacitly acknowledge” the presentment’s existence has only intensified public scrutiny, with editorials and transparency advocates ramping up calls for the report to be released ahead of the 2026 election.
Under Florida Statute 905.28, when a grand jury issues a presentment without criminal indictments, the entire report is automatically confidential. Anyone named or criticized in it can file a motion within 15 days to redact their names or damaging portions. Filing that motion automatically pauses any public release during hearings, rulings, and appeals—effectively buying months of time and conveniently shielding the findings past the November 2026 Attorney General election.
Casey DeSantis, the founder and public face of Hope Florida’s welfare-to-work mission, has been associated with the foundation by virtue of her central leadership position. The program, once praised for its innovative approach to reducing government dependency, now faces accusations that it served as a pipeline for political slush funds.
Reports indicate that the foundation distributed the money to anti-drug nonprofits, which in turn funneled it to political action committees aligned with DeSantis’ agenda, blurring the lines between charity and campaigning. Governor Ron DeSantis has vehemently denied any misconduct, dismissing the probe as a “hoax” and a politically motivated attack by the media and opponents. When the Governor was first publicly confronted about the diversion of funds he initially blamed it all on his wife saying that the Hope Foundation was “her project, not mine.”
