The Hope Florida Files: A Leaked Grand Jury Report, $10 Million of Medicaid Money, and Nobody Responsible

On Wednesday, August 26, CBS Miami did what seven months of court fights had not: it put the Hope Florida grand jury report in front of the public. The 19-page presentment — filed under seal with the Leon County Clerk of Courts on January 28 and fought over ever since — concludes that the DeSantis administration “misappropriated” $10 million of taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement, routing it through a charity tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis and into political committees that helped defeat two 2024 ballot amendments. The jurors called it “a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” And then they charged no one — because, in their words, “nobody will take responsibility” for the decision, and “virtually everyone involved is a lawyer and acted on the advice of other lawyers.” Gov. Ron DeSantis says the report is a lie and the leak is the only crime. This brief lays out what the document says, how the money moved, who it names, and how all three branches of government are responding — with every claim sourced at the bottom of the page.

What the Grand Jury Found

The presentment is unusually direct for a document that recommends no indictments. Its key findings, in the grand jury’s own words:

• The money was the public’s. “We find that the full Centene settlement was taxpayer reimbursement. This money was part of the damages Centene owed to Florida taxpayers” — a flat rejection of the administration’s position that the $10 million was a private, voluntary contribution from the company.
• The diversion was purposeful. “We heard testimony that the purpose of moving the money in question through all the different entities as described above was to get the money to the best suited group to fight the imminent ballot initiative regarding marijuana legalization.”
• The accountability gap was deliberate or near-deliberate. “Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida… no witness would take responsibility for making the decision or had any memory of who made it.” DeSantis, then-Attorney General Ashley Moody, and then-chief of staff James Uthmeier all declined to testify.
• The program itself didn’t hold up. Hope Florida was “touted by some witnesses as a high-profile project with a high success rate, but we were unable to get any evidence to substantiate these representations.” Other witnesses called it “just a concept.” The grand jury found no legitimate nexus between Hope Florida and the Centene settlement — and noted the money “only stayed in Hope Florida’s account for a couple of days.”
• The fix is legislative. “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 report recommends a law requiring all money received by the state to be deposited into General Revenue, with “real consequences” for violators.

Follow the Money

The transaction chain, as documented by the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald, Politico, and the grand jury’s forensic review of banking records:

• 2021 — Centene Corp., Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, offers to pay $67 million to settle claims it overbilled the state’s Medicaid program for prescription drugs. The state does not accept. The same year, First Lady Casey DeSantis launches Hope Florida, a welfare-assistance initiative run across state agencies.
• Sept 2024 — Weeks before the November election, the state accepts the $67 million settlement — but directs $10 million of it to the Hope Florida Foundation, the initiative’s fundraising arm, with no contract and no guardrails on its use. Per Rep. Alex Andrade, it was the only settlement payment required before the election.
• Oct 2024 — The foundation issues two $5 million grants — by far its largest ever — to Secure Florida’s Future, chaired by the president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Save Our Society From Drugs.
• Days later — The two nonprofits wire a combined $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee chaired by James Uthmeier, then DeSantis’s chief of staff. Keep Florida Clean sends roughly $7 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.23 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, another Uthmeier-chaired committee.
• Nov 2024 — Amendment 3 (recreational marijuana) draws 55.9% but fails Florida’s 60% threshold; Amendment 4 (abortion rights) also fails. Both DeSantises campaigned against the measures, and DeSantis-aligned committees spent millions on the opposition.
• Dec 2025 — Andrade reveals the state paid Washington $38 million — exactly 57% of the full $67 million, the federal share of Medicaid. Because the state reimbursed the federal government on the diverted $10 million too, he argues the true taxpayer cost is closer to $16 million. The administration confirms the reimbursement in February 2026.

Two legal problems run through the chain, per Florida State University law professor Michael Morley and other experts: Medicaid settlement proceeds belong in a state trust fund with a share owed to the federal government, and a state agency’s donation to a nonprofit remains public money requiring a formal written agreement — which the Hope Florida Foundation, an entity with no state contract, no record of Medicaid services, and lapsed nonprofit paperwork, never had.

The People the Report Names

James Uthmeier is the report’s central operational figure. The grand jury found he “was in a position of authority over those involved in settling with Centene,” and witnesses identified him as involved in directing the money after it reached Hope Florida — though no witness would say who sent it there in the first place. Rep. Andrade goes further: he says text messages from Save Our Society From Drugs show Uthmeier personally told the group to request the money, then connected it with foundation attorney Jeff Aaron, who supplied a template letter for the grant request. The nonprofit later texted Aaron confirmation that the money had been wired on to Keep Florida Clean — Uthmeier’s own PAC. In May 2025, Uthmeier told Florida Politics he had a “duty” to use the money against the marijuana amendment. He has also called the investigation a “politically motivated witch hunt” and a “hoax,” and after the leak argued that if the report is authentic, it shows “no probable cause found that anybody did anything wrong.” DeSantis appointed him Attorney General in 2025; he faces election in November, and his office has fought in court to keep the report sealed.

Ashley Moody was the state’s chief legal officer when the deal was signed. The grand jury found she knew of the plan to direct $10 million to Hope Florida and authorized her chief deputy, John Guard, to sign the settlement. Guard told jurors he had reservations — he agreed the $10 million belonged to the state and worried lawmakers would see the transfer as circumventing their spending authority — and records show he tried to remove references to Moody during drafting. The final agreement was rewritten to show the Agency for Health Care Administration, not her office, directing the money. Important distinction: the report does not establish that Moody knew the funds would end up in political committees, and PolitiFact rated a campaign claim that she “transferred $10 million… to a campaign fund” only Half True. Her campaign says she had no role in grand jury proceedings and welcomes the report’s release; she has not answered repeated press questions. DeSantis appointed her to the U.S. Senate in 2025, publicly thanking her for helping defeat the amendments. Her Democratic opponent, Angie Nixon, now demands her resignation.

Casey DeSantis is the political center of the story — and, on the current evidence, a step removed from the money. She founded Hope Florida in 2021 and its foundation in 2023; the foundation took the $10 million and cut the two $5 million checks while months behind on its own federal tax filings. She campaigned daily against Amendment 3, which the diverted money helped defeat, and the scandal is widely credited with ending her rumored 2026 run for governor. But the grand jury report does not accuse her of directing transfers or receiving funds — and the most aggressive Republican investigator in the saga, Rep. Andrade, says flatly: “I don’t see where she was involved directly.” The governor has made her the heart of his counterattack, accusing critics and the media of smearing his wife. The honest open question is narrower: what was done with her signature project, in her name, and by whom?

The Loyalty Ladder

One pattern in the public record stands out across the scandal’s cast. Uthmeier, who chaired the PAC that received the money, was appointed Attorney General. Jason Weida, the health-agency secretary whose office executed the settlement, was promoted to DeSantis’s chief of staff. State Sen. Jay Collins, the transaction’s most vocal Republican defender (“the money was being appropriated and used for the right reasons”), was appointed Lieutenant Governor. Moody was appointed to the U.S. Senate. Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron — accused by Andrade of helping engineer the grants — was reappointed to a state commission and became general counsel of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority at nearly $600 an hour. None of this proves coordination. All of it is on the record.

Three Branches, Three Reactions

Executive: attack the leak. The day after publication, DeSantis spent nearly six minutes at a Lake City event rejecting the report’s core finding — “There was no diversion of any Medicaid funds” — and declaring that “the only crime that was apparent was whoever leaked the grand jury report,” warning of consequences “in a variety of different ways.” The denial sits awkwardly next to his own administration’s confirmation that it reimbursed the federal government the Medicaid share of the diverted money. Uthmeier, for his part, pulled out his phone at a press conference and read Florida’s criminal-solicitation statute aloud to a reporter asking about his PAC.

Legislative: the fix that already died once. This scandal was first exposed not by prosecutors but by the Republican-led Florida House, whose Health Care Budget Subcommittee put foundation and agency officials under oath in spring 2025 before the administration stopped cooperating. In the 2026 session, the House unanimously passed HB 593 — tighter oversight of settlement funds and a ban on steering them to third parties — and the bill died in the Senate. The grand jury has now recommended nearly the same reform. Incoming Senate Democratic Leader Tracie Davis says she will file it; Republicans hold veto-proof supermajorities, so its fate is in GOP hands. The legislature had already defunded the Office of Hope Florida within the Department of Education in June 2025.

Judicial: a seven-month fight over sunlight. The report was filed under seal in January. State Attorney Jack Campbell, a Democrat whose office ran the investigation, refused to even acknowledge its existence, citing grand jury secrecy law. In March, Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh granted the Florida Center for Government Accountability limited intervention to argue for release; the Attorney General’s office objected and appealed — the state’s top lawyer litigating to suppress a report about his own conduct. The leak has partly overtaken that fight, but the official-release ruling, the appeal, and a possible leak investigation are all still live. As of this writing, no leak probe has been announced.

Three Readings of the Report

The same 19 pages are being read three different ways.

The Left: corruption, laundered through a charity

On the left, the report confirms what the paper trail always showed: $10 million meant for the health care of low-income children, pregnant women, and disabled Floridians was converted into campaign spending for the governor’s ballot fights, routed through his wife’s charity to disguise the source. Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried calls it “blatant corruption”; Senate candidate Angie Nixon calls it “deep, disgusting corruption” and demands Moody’s resignation; AG candidate José Javier Rodríguez says Uthmeier “should resign, come clean and turn himself in.” To the left, the absence of charges is not exoneration but indictment of a different sort: a wall of lawyers, coordinated amnesia, and an Attorney General who used his office to bury the findings. Their core claim: when everyone involved takes the Fifth against memory itself, the system is working as designed — for the designers.

The Right: no charges, no crime — except the leak

On the right, the bottom line of the report is the one line that matters legally: a grand jury that heard every witness the prosecution brought found insufficient evidence to charge anyone with anything. The settlement, they argue, was a lawful agreement negotiated by an independent agency, in which a private company made a voluntary contribution to a direct-support organization — a common Florida arrangement — and the $67 million recovered was more than triple the state’s actual loss, a good deal for taxpayers. Fighting a ballot amendment with lawfully raised political money is politics, not crime. The right sees the investigation as a Democratic state attorney’s fishing expedition, amplified by DeSantis’s intra-party rivals and a press corps eager to damage the governor and his wife — and notes that even PolitiFact found the most viral version of the accusation exaggerated. Their core claim: the only unlawful act anyone has identified is the leak of a secret grand jury document, and that is where the investigation should point.

The Center: the loophole is the scandal

The center’s reading starts from what both sides concede. The state itself reimbursed Washington the Medicaid share of the $10 million — an admission, in dollars, that the money was Medicaid money. A Republican-led House committee, not Democrats, first traced the transfers and compared them to money laundering. And a grand jury — while clearing everyone criminally — still used the word “misappropriated” and begged the legislature to act. Centrists note that the most damning facts are undisputed: settlement cash moved from a health agency to a charity to a PAC in about two weeks, and no one in authority will say who decided it should. The House has already voted unanimously to close the loophole; the Senate killed the bill. Their core claim: whether or not anyone goes to jail, a system in which $10 million of public money can become campaign money with no signature on the decision is broken — and the fix is one floor vote away.

What Happens Next

Four threads to watch. First, the leak: DeSantis has promised consequences “in a variety of different ways,” and disclosing a grand jury presentment is a potential crime — but no investigation has been announced, and press advocates note the report is a document of overriding public interest. Second, the courts: Judge Marsh must still rule on the official release and redactions, and the Attorney General’s appeal of the transparency intervention is pending. Third, the federal thread: HHS and CMS opened a review of the Medicaid diversion in 2025, and Rep. Andrade says he referred his findings to the FBI — no federal case is confirmed, but the state’s own reimbursement concession keeps the jurisdictional door open. Fourth, November: Moody faces Nixon for U.S. Senate and Uthmeier faces Rodríguez for Attorney General, and both races now run through this report. In the meantime, the grand jury’s central question hangs over Tallahassee: $10 million moved, and no one decided.

Sources

• NBC 6 South Florida — Leaked Hope Florida grand jury report says state ‘misappropriated’ funds (Aug 27, 2026)
• CBS12 — DeSantis, Uthmeier say leak was the crime after grand jury finds $10M misappropriated (Aug 28, 2026)
• USA TODAY Network–Florida — Hope Florida grand jury report leaked. Here’s what it says (Aug 26, 2026)
• WFLA — DeSantis: ‘The only crime’ connected to Hope Florida was leaked grand jury report (Aug 28, 2026)
• PolitiFact — Alexander Vindman overstates what is known about Ashley Moody’s role (Aug 13, 2026)
• WCTV — Hope Florida scandal flares again during closed court fight (Jul 30, 2026)
• WUSF — Rep. Andrade accuses AG Uthmeier of money laundering, wire fraud (Apr 18, 2025)
• Rick’s Blog — Andrade: AG Uthmeier ‘stole’ $16M from Florida taxpayers (Dec 8, 2025)
• WGCU — Leon County circuit judge grants limited intervention in grand jury case (Mar 25, 2026)
• News From The States — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ health care administration shakeup (Feb 25, 2025)
• Wikipedia — Hope Florida scandal (consolidated background and primary-source citations)

Image credits: Florida Capitol entrance sign — Riis2602, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Portraits of Ron DeSantis, Casey DeSantis, and James Uthmeier — State of Florida, public domain. Portrait of Ashley Moody — U.S. Senate Photography Service, public domain.