Appeals court strikes down grand jury report in Hope Florida case; DeSantis declares victory

Striding into a conference room full of cameras on Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis had a big smile on his face. 

"Hola!" he declared. "Great to be back in Miami." 

Based on the Governor's demeanor, you would have no way of knowing that at that very moment, Hurricane Isaias was barreling toward the Florida Panhandle. In just 36 hours, the category three storm would make landfall, killing at least four people. 

But hurricane preparations could wait. DeSantis instead decided to fly to Miami and hold a press conference where he could declare victory in the Hope Florida scandal that has not only sullied the final two years of his term but likely cut short whatever political aspirations his wife may have had to succeed him. 

Waving the 19-page ruling from the First District Court of Appeals, DeSantis spoke uninterrupted for 23 minutes, praising the ruling that expunged the leaked grand jury report into his administration's decision to direct $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation. That money was then quickly routed through various dark money political action committees before landing in a PAC that he and his then chief of staff, James Uthmeier, used to oppose the 2024 amendment that would have legalized marijuana. 

As if unconsciously mirroring what was happening in the Gulf, DeSantis began his comments in Miami as a blustery Tropical Storm, recalling the false "narratives" that had been pushed against him during the Pandemic ("We had better COVID numbers than New York") before turning to Hope Florida and building into a rhetorical Category 5. 

The Hope Florida scandal, he said, was a "hoax," perpetrated by "self-interested cabals in the state legislature." He repeatedly referred to the judge who oversaw the grand jury as "one of the most hostile to our administration;" he argued it was "totally inappropriate" for a prosecutor to question members of his administration about the work they do; and he derided the citizens who served on the grand jury as being "some very hostile liberal grand jury" and accused them of "spewing nonsense." 

But he saved the full force of his remarks for the media, repeatedly accusing The New York Times and ABC News of lying about Hope Florida ("That's why people hate the media"), before paying particular attention to CBS News Miami, which published the sealed grand jury report last month. 

"I think you have a responsibility to correct the record," he said. "I think you have a responsibility to show that there's been some adult supervision that has been rendered with the First DCA. And that the kangaroo court is over, and that this is the law." 

Returning to the decision, DeSantis said, "You will never find a smackdown more thorough than what the First DCA administered to this joke of a process." 

And the Governor was largely correct; the appeals court ruling was blistering. It struck down the grand jury's finding that his administration "misappropriated" $10 million from a Medicaid settlement with the healthcare giant Centene as part of a "sophisticated scheme" to fund the governor's political activities. 

"The $10 million provided to Hope Florida in the Centene settlement was never public money," the court ruled. "The money neither reimbursed the State for losses from Centene's overcharges nor ever became the property of the State of Florida, as the transfer of the funds was directly from Centene to Hope Florida." 

The court adopted the DeSantis Administration's longstanding argument that the $10 million was not "owed" to the state because of overbilling. In the settlement, Centene computed that it had technically overbilled Florida $57 million, but to resolve any potential litigation, Centene offered an additional $10 million under the condition that the state does not continue to review the billing records to see if Florida was in fact owed more.  

The original settlement agreement made clear that Centene was willing to pay the State of Florida that additional $10 million to resolve "any other potentially alleged damages."  

The grand jury believed the $10 million was part of the settlement and was therefore taxpayer money. Members of the Florida Legislature – including both Democrats and Republicans – have also said that money was taxpayer money.  

John Guard, the former chief deputy Attorney General, who reviewed the settlement, told the grand jury he had "reservations" about the deal and that "esoterically" he agreed the $10 million was taxpayer money and "belonged to the state of Florida." Because of his concerns, he required the final agreement with Centene be rewritten so that then-Attorney General Ashley Moody wouldn't be liable for directing the $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. 

Even Republican Senator Rick Scott said that money was taxpayer money and should have been returned to the state to help pay for the medical needs of poor sick children. "Millions in tax dollars for poor kids have no business funding political ads," he wrote. 

They weren't alone in the view this was taxpayer money. Centene's settlement with Florida was one of more than twenty settlements reached with various states in the last few years for the same overbilling issue. Each of those states were also given an additional $10 million to resolve any undetected damages. And in every other instance, those states treated that money like it was taxpayer money and returned it to their state treasuries so they could use it to help others. 

DeSantis, however, has taken the view he was free to decide the best use for that $10 million – and his people decided to direct Centene to send it to the foundation created to support his wife's signature initiative, Hope Florida.  

In its ruling published late Wednesday, the First District Court of Appeals agreed with DeSantis.  

It is worth noting that the proceedings before the appeals court were done entirely in secret. The lawyers who argued before the appeals court were all opposed to the grand jury's findings. Those attorneys included some of the most powerful attorneys in the country, including Chris Kise, who was one of Donald Trump's criminal defense attorneys. The Leon County State Attorney, Jack Campbell, who could have defended the findings of the grand jury, decided not to participate. 

The Florida Trident reported last week that fees for the attorneys who opposed the grand jury report were paid for by the Governor's office using tax dollars. The Trident said it obtained invoices showing the attorneys were paid $895 an hour and that the fees so far had exceeded $330,000. 

DeSantis said the ruling vindicated his administration. 

"This fully debunks this idea of any type of misappropriation," DeSantis said. "There was no misappropriations. That's a lie, that's a hoax, that's partisan exercise that people who are abusing this process tried to perpetrate." 

The decision was written by the newest member of the court of appeals, Judge Lance Neff, who was appointed by DeSantis to the court in March. 

"I appreciate Judge Neff's opinion," DeSantis said. "He's really a fantastic judge." 

And even DeSantis admitted the forcefulness of Neff's opinion was unusual. 

"It's very rare that you would get a court to come in so strongly against the idea of misappropriation," he said. 

There is no doubt this is a major public relations victory for DeSantis. It is also a win for both Uthmeier, who DeSantis appointed to be Attorney General, and Ashley Moody, who DeSantis appointed to the United States Senate. Both Uthmeier and Moody are on the ballot this November, and their roles in the Hope Florida scandal have become a major campaign issue. 

Moody authorized the "authorized" her former chief deputy, Guard, to sign the settlement agreement.  And the grand jury identified the nexus for much of the activity surrounding the transfer to Uthmeier.   

On Thursday, Uthmeier was with DeSantis in Miami for his press conference. "The First District Court of Appeals concluded what we've said from the beginning, that the state attorney process here was an abuse of power, exceeded authority, violated Florida statute," he said. "The entire proceedings have been deemed erroneous as a matter of law." 

Nevertheless, there are a few things the appeals court did not appear to have considered and made little to no mention of in its ruling. For instance, the court did not mention that officials in DeSantis's own administration treated the $10 million like it was Medicaid money and reimbursed the federal government for its share of the millions it directed to the Hope Florida Foundation. 

Exceeding its authority

The primary objection to the grand jury report by the appeals court was its belief that the grand jury exceeded its authority in how it wrote the report. 

The appeals court said because the grand jury failed to indict anyone, it should not have named individuals who were involved in moving the $10 million from Centene to the Hope Florida Foundation and then onto a series of political action committees before landing in a PAC overseen by Uthmeier and DeSantis. The grand jury had said they were unable to indict anyone because no one would take responsibility for the initial decision to send $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. Numerous witnesses said they could not remember key details. The grand jury expressed skepticism about the memory lapses. 

The court of appeals said if the grand jury couldn't bring an indictment, then they should not issue a report implicating various individuals in possible criminal wrongdoing. 

"A grand jury may investigate and report, but it may not declare conduct unlawful and then decline to charge it, and it may not condemn people by name without indicting them," the court ruled. 

The court returned to this theme throughout the opinion. 

"Having declined to indict, the grand jury retained no jurisdiction to publish individualized findings of criminal-like culpability," Judge Neff wrote. "A grand jury 'has no legitimate or proper function to go beyond investigation of criminal activity or matters involving public officials and public monies and make any report that names, embarrasses, ridicules, criticizes, censures or defames any person,' where such statements 'are unrelated to criminal activities or matters involving public officials and public monies.'" 

That last phrase – "involving public officials and public monies" – appears to be significant. Since the appeals court decided the $10 million was not "public monies," it concluded the grand jury had no authority to name the individuals involved in the efforts to move the $10 million from Centene to the Hope Florida Foundation and then into a variety of PACS before ending up in the PAC controlled by Uthmeier and DeSantis. 

The court appears to acknowledge that in another section of their opinion, when it states: "The grand jury was free to report the movement of the funds insofar as it bore on the conduct of public officials and on Hope Florida, the direct-support organization that awarded the grants," the court of appeals stated. "It was not free to brand private recipients as participants in a `sophisticated scheme' to `misappropriate' funds—an accusation of quasi-criminal wrongdoing against unindicted private citizens that lies outside the lawful ambit of grand jury authority." 

During his press conference in Miami on Thursday, DeSantis declared that "all the narratives crashed and burned with this opinion." He said this opinion puts the story to rest for good. 

Unfortunately, it does not.  

As the court noted, "the grand jury was free to report the movement of the funds insofar as it bore on the conduct of public officials and on Hope Florida." 

And questions surrounding the conduct of public officials remain, as Neff and the other judges never fully address the broader question of why $10 million was donated to the Hope Florida Foundation? 

Because that remains the central issue. 

Was it always the "scheme," as the grand jury believed, that officials within the DeSantis administration directed Centene to send $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation, knowing that its actual destination was going to be the PAC controlled by DeSantis and Uthmeier? 

Did they use the Hope Florida Foundation to hide their actual intentions? 

Critics of how Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell conducted the grand jury have always suggested there were other violations investigators could have examined besides "misappropriation." 

Following the money

It is worth remembering how all this unfolded. 

The state was first told about the Centene settlement in 2021. And yet Florida officials did nothing about it for three years. It was only in September 2024, when DeSantis was mounting a campaign against Amendment 3, which would have legalized marijuana, that Florida expedited settlement talks. 

At the time DeSantis and Uthmeier were using a political action committee called Keep Florida Clean to fight the amendment. Billionaire Ken Griffin had seeded the PAC with $12 million in July of that year, but by September, the account was running low and it needed more money. 

That's when Florida contacted Centene and said it was ready to settle. Centene immediately sent them a draft settlement agreement refunding the state $67 million. But state officials amended the agreement so that Centene would send $57 million to state coffers and $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. 

Whose idea was it to send $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation? No one who appeared before the grand jury could remember. 

That $10 million "donation" to the Hope Florida Foundation was the single largest donation given to the Foundation in its history. And yet, the state kept it a secret. DeSantis didn't notify the Legislature. He didn't publicly thank Centene for its generosity. Neither the state nor the Hope Florida Foundation even issued a press release. 

Critics believe that secrecy was deliberate because the DeSantis Administration did not want to draw attention to this $10 million. 

Both the grand jury and the legislative committee that would later investigate this in 2025 concluded that it was the plan from the very outset to get that $10 million from the Centene settlement into the DeSantis/Uthmeier PAC, Keep Florida Clean, by using the Hope Florida Foundation as the conduit. 

The reason this was necessary, they argue, is that DeSantis and his staff knew they couldn't tell Centene to send the money directly to Keep Florida Clean, so it was first sent to the Hope Florida Foundation – a 501C3 nonprofit.  

The foundation was set up to help fund First Lady Casey DeSantis's Hope Florida initiative. The idea behind Hope Florida was to move individuals away from government assistance and instead encourage them to receive help from religious-based organizations.  

But as a 501(c)3, they are prohibited by federal tax law from funding political campaigns, so they couldn't send the money directly to Keep Florida Clean. Instead, it would have to go through the two 501C4s – Save Our Society from Drugs and Secure Florida's Future. Both organizations submitted $5 million grant proposals to the Hope Florida Foundation, and the two grants were immediately approved without any scrutiny. 

"I think that those grants were totally appropriate," DeSantis said Thursday. 

Nevertheless, what it meant is that almost immediately after Centene sent the Hope Florida Foundation $10 million, the money was gone. 

And within a couple of weeks of getting their $5 million grants, both Save Our Society from Drugs and Secure Florida's Future, transferred nearly all of it to the DeSantis Uthmeier PAC Keep Florida Clean, which in turn gave millions to the Republican Party of Florida. 

"Irreparable harm"

On Thursday, DeSantis, citing the appeals court decision, said the people named in the grand jury report suffered irreparable harm. "There are people who are just working in these government agencies, they're not public figures in a sense of being out in front of the cameras," he said. "They're just doing their job. They get called in, which is first of all, is totally inappropriate. And now they're having some very hostile liberal grand jury impugn them without accusing them or having evidence that they actually did anything wrong." 

He also strenuously defended his wife. 

"I also just know that they were using this in part as a way to impugn my wife, the First Lady," he said. "And again, the media has lied about this tremendously." 

Of course, what DeSantis failed to mention is that the only reason Casey DeSantis's name has appeared in this affair is that someone on his staff made the decision to use the foundation associated with her initiative as the conduit for the $10 million. 

And who made the decision? Again, no one will admit to it. 

Among those still asking that question is Senator Rick Scott. After the appeals court decision was announced, Scott told Politico there were still "unanswered questions" including who came up with the initial idea to send the money to the Hope Florida Foundation instead returning it to the state's Medicaid program. 

"There's $10 million taken out of the Medicaid program that's supposed to go to poor kids," Scott told Politico. "We ought to get all the money back so that taxpayers are not on the hook." 

He went on to say: "All the facts need to get out." 

Before leaving Miami to head back to Tallahassee, DeSantis did address the approaching hurricane. "I don't know how to pronounce this because it's not normal," he said, referring to Hurricane Isaias. "So, I'm calling it Isaiah. You guys can call it what you want. I know that's not how you pronounce this. It's something else. But it's weird."