TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Hope Florida program, once celebrated by the governor and First Lady as a compassionate outreach effort, is now under a grand jury’s microscope. Prosecutors in the capital are reportedly meeting this week to decide whether criminal charges are warranted in a growing scandal that’s shaken the state’s political establishment.
The proceedings are happening behind closed doors inside Leon County’s 2nd Judicial Circuit courthouse, where prosecutors are taking evidence in the Hope Florida investigation.
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At issue: whether anyone broke the law after $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement moved through the Hope Florida Foundation to other nonprofits, and then to a political committee once controlled by now–Attorney General James Uthmeier. That committee later helped defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana.
State Attorney Jack Campbell, who is overseeing the process, declined to provide details.
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“No, there’s no comment on that at all. Everything that the grand jury does is, in fact, confidential,” Campbell said when asked about the case last week.
Legal experts say the secrecy is standard procedure. Mario Gallucci of the Gallucci Law Firm is a former New York assistant district attorney and was a principal attorney in its major felony unit. He said these proceedings can take weeks to complete.
“Nobody knows what’s going on behind those closed doors,” said Gallucci. “A prosecutor will present witness after witness, and at the end of all the testimony, they’ll tell the grand jury what charges they’d like them to consider. Then the prosecutor leaves the room, and the grand jury votes.”
While the legal work remains hidden, the political fallout has been anything but.
House Minority Leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D–Tampa) chuckled when first asked about the investigation, then called the probe long overdue.
“This is the sort of swamp-like behavior that people hate,” Driskell said. “It makes them feel like their government is not listening to them. So if we can root out this corruption, then we need to do it.”
Democratic attorney general candidate José Javier Rodríguez went further, suggesting the scandal is part of a broader pattern of corruption in state government.
“We’ve had this corrupt cabal running Tallahassee for so long that, again, I think it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Rodríguez said. “If you’re taking advantage of people — that includes taxpayers — I don’t care how powerful, connected, or rich you are. I’m coming for you as attorney general.”
Both Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Uthmeier have denied wrongdoing, calling the controversy politically motivated. Uthmeier defended the program earlier this year.
"You've got an independent foundation that's got its own board. It's a not-for-profit, and it made its own decision to give generous support to other not-for-profits…” Uthmeier said in April. “That's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And if some of those organizations were already active in the fight to oppose a dangerous constitutional amendment that would have allowed recreational marijuana to be used anywhere, there's also not a problem with that.”
The Hope Florida initiative, championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis, continues to receive state funding and operate as normal. But critics argue its credibility has been deeply damaged by the ongoing probe.
For now, the Leon County grand jury’s work remains secret — and it could take much of the fall season before any decision on potential indictments is announced. Neither the governor’s office nor the attorney general’s office has commented on this latest development.
