Questions persist over Hope Florida grand jury's failure to hold anyone accountable over misappropriated funds

Ever since CBS Miami revealed that a state grand jury determined the DeSantis Administration misappropriated $10 million of taxpayer money into the Hope Florida Foundation, the overriding question for many has been: Why isn't anyone being held accountable?

The grand jury found that the $10 million, which was intended to help poor sick children, was instead routed into a pair of dark money political action committees.

The grand jury said they couldn't bring criminal charges because nobody would take responsibility for what the grand jury described as "a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities."

The grand jury was led by the state attorney in Leon County, Jack Campbell, and his decision not to pursue the case further has sparked confusion and frustration among former prosecutors interviewed by CBS News Miami.

"I have to tell you honestly, I read this report again last night; it's really outrageous," said Sam Rabin, a former state and federal prosecutor and a longtime criminal defense attorney. "I mean, this is nothing more than a 'sweep this whole thing under the rug.' This was not a serious effort to get to the bottom of this."

"This grand jury concluded that the money was stolen," Rabin said. "They used the word misappropriated, but that's another way of saying the money was stolen. Once they have identified that a crime occurred, they had an obligation to pursue that and find the people that were culpable, that were responsible. And they completely abdicated that responsibility."

Bruce Udolf, the former head of the public corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, agreed.

"Any prosecutor, worth their salt, would not walk away from this case with just a grand jury recommendation that we have insufficient evidence to proceed," Udolf said. "The only excuse for saying we have insufficient evidence is to do a thorough investigation. And this, sad to say, this investigation was not thorough by any means."

Campbell empaneled the grand jury last year after Republican state representative Alex Andrade forwarded the findings of a pair of state House hearings that first uncovered the $10 million diversion into the Hope Florida Foundation. Campbell, a Democrat, did not respond to a request for comment.

"Jack Campbell's a good guy, and he takes his job seriously," said Dave Aronberg, the former state attorney for Palm Beach County. "He's not partisan. And so, when he's being called out for being a Democratic partisan hack, that's just not who he is.

"He's also cautious," Aronberg said. "And when you go after prominent state elected officials, you got to make sure you have the goods, not gray area. You've got to make sure you have it clearly. And the grand jury did not believe so."

Nevertheless, Aronberg said based on his reading of the grand jury report he did believe crimes had occurred.

"Oh, yeah," Aronberg said. "For those who ordered the transfer of taxpayer funds to this organization, they could face first-degree felonies of grand theft and official misconduct. Those are serious crimes."

In their report, grand jurors noted key witnesses who appeared before them claimed they were unable to remember what happened and who was responsible. Rabin said that is not unusual.

"In every grand jury investigation, people clam up," Rabin said. "People decide they don't want to talk because it could incriminate them. So essentially the grand jury in this case said, well, nobody's really willing to talk to us, so we can't get to the bottom of this. If that were the test, there would never be any indictments."

Both David Jolly, who is running for governor against Byron Donalds, and Jose Javier Rodriguez, who is running for Attorney General against James Uthmeier, said if they were elected, they would launch a new investigation into the diversion.

DeSantis and Uthmeier both continue to deny any wrongdoing.