CREW requests DOJ, FBI records on Hope Florida scandal 

CREW is requesting records from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pertaining to their investigation of the diversion of funds from a Medicaid overbilling settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, including records regarding the decision not to bring criminal charges against anyone involved.

In the spring of 2025, a subcommittee of the Florida House of Representatives began investigating the diversion of $10 million of taxpayer money from a Medicaid overbilling settlement between Florida and the healthcare company, Centene. The $10 million was directly deposited into the bank account of the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity associated with a state program created by Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration. The foundation then quickly redistributed the funds through two $5 million grants to nonprofits that subsequently provided $8.5 million to an anti-marijuana legalization political committee called Keep Florida Clean, Inc., which was overseen by Governor DeSantis’s then-chief of staff and current Florida Attorney General, James Uthmeier. 

When the investigation ended, Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade, who led the probe, said he believed that there was “a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud” and that he had discussed his findings with the DOJ. Former federal prosecutors who spoke to the Miami Herald said they believed Rep. Andrade’s allegations were on solid ground since they could identify how “at least eight different federal charges, from theft of government funds to money laundering, could be investigated related to the dollars that passed through the Hope Florida Foundation.” A Florida state grand jury that investigated the money transfers concluded that taxpayer funds had been “misappropriated” as “part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities,” but did not propose any criminal charges because nobody would “take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida… or had any memory of who made it.”

Despite public reporting and the Florida state grand jury’s determination that the funds were improperly diverted, no criminal charges were filed. The public needs immediate clarity about what factors led to the determination not to pursue criminal charges for the misuse of taxpayer funds by public officials, particularly if there were any considerations other than the sufficiency of the evidence. 

Header photo by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license.