$10M IN MEDICAID SETTLEMENT MONEY ENDED UP IN POLITICAL PACS, GRAND JURY FINDS

🚨 $10 million meant to help poor children get health insurance ended up funding a political campaign, a Florida grand jury found.

Fortune reports the Leon County grand jury concluded the money was "misappropriated" after being diverted from a state Medicaid settlement to Hope Florida, the charity started in 2021 by first lady Casey DeSantis.

The charity's stated purpose is connecting struggling families with churches and aid groups so they stay off publicly funded assistance programs.

Instead, per the report, the $10 million moved into political action committees that spent it opposing a 2024 statewide ballot measure to legalize marijuana for adults. That measure fell just short of the 60% supermajority Florida requires.

The grand jury identified Keep Florida Clean PAC, tied to then-chief of staff James Uthmeier, as the prime recipient.

‼️ No one was charged. "Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally," the report concluded. The grand jury said nobody would take responsibility for sending the money, and nobody remembered who did.

Gov. DeSantis did not dispute the report's legitimacy, per Fortune, but insisted no laws were broken and said whoever leaked the sealed documents would face "consequences." Uthmeier called renewed interest in the findings "a politically motivated hoax." Former AG Ashley Moody said her office had no knowledge of how the funds would be spent.

A finding is not a conviction. But $10 million left an account for children's coverage and did not come back.

Should settlement money be legally ring-fenced so it can only be spent on what it was won for?

#Florida #Medicaid #MoneyNews #Accountability #causeanuproar