TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A Florida state grand jury found that the DeSantis administration misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer funds, calling the transfer part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities, according to the grand jury's report, which was filed sealed with the Leon County Clerk's office on January 28, 2026 and obtained by CBS News Miami, whose reporting brought it to light in August 2026. National wire coverage followed on August 27, 2026.

No one was charged. The report itself says the grand jury found insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally, and that finding is the presumption-of-innocence frame for everything that follows: a grand jury report is not a conviction, none of the officials named in it has been charged with a crime in connection with it, and each is presumed innocent.

The money's path, as the report describes it, began with a settlement. Centene Corporation, the state's largest Medicaid contractor, settled with Florida over prescription drug overbilling in the Healthy Kids program, with the state owed roughly $67 million. On October 4, 2024, $10 million of the settlement went to the Hope Florida Foundation, the charity supporting the initiative connected to First Lady Casey DeSantis. Within 25 days, the foundation moved the money out as two $5 million grants to two organizations. Within days of that, nearly $8.5 million reached Keep Florida Clean, a political committee associated with James Uthmeier, then the Governor's chief of staff and now Florida's Attorney General, and $7 million ultimately went to the Republican Party of Florida and the campaign against Amendment 3, the marijuana legalization measure on the 2024 ballot.

The report, per CBS News Miami, says Uthmeier directed the flow of the money, that then-Attorney General Ashley Moody, now a U.S. Senator, authorized the diversion, that her chief deputy John Guard signed the settlement despite reservations, and that Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida signed the agreement. None of the three most senior figures, DeSantis, Moody, or Uthmeier, testified before the grand jury. Governor DeSantis has said he was not involved and has called the affair a hoax; Uthmeier has dismissed it as a nothingburger. Those responses deserve the same prominence as the findings, and the report's own bottom line cuts both ways: the grand jury wrote that nobody would take responsibility for deciding the $10 million would go to Hope Florida, or had any memory of who made the decision.

The grand jury's recommendations are legislative, not prosecutorial: require state settlement funds to be deposited into the General Fund, and build tracking for taxpayer money that moves through nonprofits.

Why It Matters for Memphis

The 901 Report covers civic accountability anywhere in the country on its own terms, and this is the form of the problem that matters most: public money that leaves the public ledger through a charity and arrives in politics, examined by a grand jury that found misappropriation and no chargeable person. The recommendation the grand jury landed on, settlement money goes to the General Fund where appropriators can see it, is the kind of structural fix any state, Tennessee included, can be measured against.

The Oversight Question

A grand jury found the money was misappropriated and could not find a single official who would say, or remember, who decided. If a $10 million transfer can move through a state government without an owner, what does that say about the paper trail, and who fixes it?

Your city. Your money. Your receipts.

Sources

  • CBS News Miami, "Grand jury finds DeSantis administration 'misappropriated' $10 million in taxpayer money to Hope Florida" (original reporting, obtained the sealed report): https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/grand-jury-report-hope-florida/
  • Associated Press via ABC News, "Florida grand jury finds DeSantis administration misused $10 million, but no charges filed," August 27, 2026: https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/florida-grand-jury-finds-desantis-administration-misused-10-136016013
  • The Hill, "Grand jury: DeSantis admin 'misappropriated' tax dollars in Hope Florida scandal": https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/6056407-grand-jury-desantis-hope-florida-scandal/
  • Fortune, "DeSantis administration diverted $10 million meant to help poor children, Florida grand jury finds," August 28, 2026: https://fortune.com/2026/08/28/florida-desantis-10-million-hope-florida-grand-jury/