The Internal Revenue Service is reviewing a whistleblower claim about $10 million in Medicaid settlement money that moved through the Hope Florida Foundation and, within weeks, into a political committee chaired by James Uthmeier, now Florida’s attorney general, according to new records obtained by the Florida Trident.
State Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican who led House hearings last year into the diversion of the settlement money to the foundation, filed the claim with the IRS earlier this year. The foundation is a state-created charity that supports Hope Florida, the signature initiative of First Lady Casey DeSantis touted to benefit sick and needy children.
The claim puts a federal agency on a money trail that a Leon County grand jury traced in January and described as “obvious”: from a Medicaid settlement with Centene Corp., to the foundation, to two nonprofits, and within weeks to Keep Florida Clean, the committee Uthmeier chaired to fight Amendment 3, the 2024 ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana.
The grand jury found that both nonprofits “mischaracterized the use of the funds” and that the money was “misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities,” but concluded there was “insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally.”
Records reviewed by the Trident, including tax returns filed after the grand jury began hearing witnesses, campaign finance reports, banking records, emails, text messages and sworn...
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