TALLAHASSEE (Herald Times) — A Republican lawmaker shocked Florida’s political world when he accused representatives of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration of committing federal crimes by diverting $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to political activities last year.
No one has been charged, and DeSantis administration officials have denied wrongdoing. But four former federal prosecutors told the Herald/Times that Rep. Alex Andrade could be on strong legal ground.
Those statutes could carry sentences of decades in prison. The former prosecutors said that anyone who misdirected Medicaid money could be ensnared.
Whether the federal government will investigate is another question.
The former federal prosecutors, who worked a collective 86 years for the Department of Justice, come from both sides of the political aisle and analyzed the saga for the Herald/Times. They include an ex-FBI agent who became an assistant U.S. attorney, a former leader of the department’s fraud section, a former head of narcotics for the Justice Department who helped craft the government’s money-laundering statutes and an ex-deputy chief of the department’s asset forfeiture and money laundering section.
Florida State Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier talk during the first day of the legislative session at the Florida State Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in Tallahassee, Florida. (Miami Herald photo by: Matias J. Ocner)
All four said, based on the information that has emerged so far about the $10 million, there is ample evidence for the Department of Justice to launch an investigation.
“Once you have Medicaid funds involved, quite frankly, those funds belong to the state and not to the charity or political action committees,” said Charles Blau, who as a federal prosecutor ran a money laundering task force in Miami. “So, I would think they would be ripe for investigation of money laundering.”
Whether the $10 million was Medicaid money is the central question.
Last year, the state quietly settled with the Medicaid giant Centene for $67 million for overbilling on prescription drugs in the state healthcare program for low-income Floridians. As part of that settlement, the state Agency for Health Care Administration received $57 million and directed Centene to send the other $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation, a state-created charity that supports an initiative spearheaded by Casey DeSantis to get Floridians off government aid.
The charity sent $5 million apiece to two nonprofits. The groups then contributed at least $8.5 million to a political committee that was led by DeSantis’ then-chief of staff James Uthmeier and opposed last year’s ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. Uthmeier’s committee later sent $10.5 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.1 million to DeSantis’ political committee.
DeSantis, Uthmeier and other state officials have said the $10 million was not Medicaid money, but a separate charitable donation by the company. Uthmeier is now Florida attorney general.
DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin said the “narrative is false.”
Stefan Cassella previously served at the U.S. Department of Justice as deputy chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section. He is an expert witness and consultant in Maryland. (Stefan Cassella)
“Once again, the Tampa Bay Times is pushing a narrative for clicks over facts,” he said in a statement. “Your activism knows no bounds.”
Uthmeier spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said the “narrative is nonsense.”
“I’m sure your hand-picked, starved-for-attention former prosecutors told you everything you wanted to hear, but unfortunately for your narrative, the actual law enforcement agencies are not entertaining the state representative’s unhinged conspiracy theories,” Redfern said in a statement.
Former federal prosecutors and Medicaid experts told the Herald/Times that the state’s reasoning that the $10 million wasn’t Medicaid money was flawed. Andrade has said that Florida’s accounting ledger shows the DeSantis administration is refunding the federal government its share of the settlement based on the full $67 million.
Regardless of what was repaid, taking $10 million from a Medicaid settlement for other purposes is likely criminal, said the former prosecutors.
“There’s a very strong argument here … that this behavior is defrauding not only Florida, but defrauding the United States as well,” said Stefan Cassella, a former federal prosecutor for 30 years who specialized in Medicaid fraud and money laundering.
A text message from Save Our Society from Drugs Executive Director Amy Ronshausen on Oct. 22, 2024 to Hope Florida Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron. The message was provided from Rep. Alex Andrade to the Herald/Times on the evening of April 15 after his public hearing on the Foundation where he requested documents related to his inquiry into the Foundation. He said Ronshausen had provided them to him as part of his request. Redactions by the Herald/Times. Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola
The federal laws at stake:
| Mail Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1341: It is a federal crime to use the mail or commercial interstate carrier, including FedEx or UPS, to carry out a scheme to defraud. | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Wire Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1343: It is a federal crime to use interstate wire communications to carry out a scheme to defraud. |
| 3 | Theft Concerning Programs Receiving Federal Funds 18 U.S.C. 666 (a)(1)(A): It is a crime to use public money for private gain. |
| 4 | Theft of Government Money or Property 18 U.S.C. 641: It is a federal crime to steal over $1,000 of money or property belonging to the United States. |
| 5 | Healthcare Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1347: It is a federal crime to knowingly execute or attempt to execute a scheme to defraud a healthcare benefit program or obtain, by false representations or fraud, money from it. |
| 6 | Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States 18 U.S.C. 371: It is a crime for two or more people to agree to a scheme to defraud the United States, which includes the federal healthcare programs. |
| 7 | Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud 18 U.S.C. 1349: It is a crime for two or more people to agree to a scheme to defraud the United States using the mail or interstate carriers including FedEx or UPS. |
| 8 | Money Laundering 18 U.S.C. 1957: It is a crime to knowingly engage or attempt to engage in a monetary transaction of over $10,000 with illegal money. |
Eight possible crimes
Based on what is known about the movement of money among organizations, investigators could explore eight potential charges, according to Scott Newton, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor.
“The alleged conduct suggests potential violations of several federal felony statutes,” Newton told the Herald/Times in a statement.
Statutes relating to mail and wire fraud are the most commonly used when investigating financial crimes, because the government only has to prove the mail or electronic communication was used in any way during a scheme to defraud, he said.
Andrade said Uthmeier told the two nonprofits to ask the Hope Florida Foundation for $5 million grants within days of the donation. Text messages Andrade obtained and shared with the Herald/Times show the foundation wired $5 million to one of the nonprofit organizations days later. It’s not known whether the U.S. Postal Service or carriers such as UPS or FedEx were used in any of the transactions.
“The defense would have a difficult burden in defending the timing of two nearly verbatim purported ‘grant requests’ and showing that the series of subsequent transfers were not made to conceal fraud involving the diversion and conversion of tax dollars for personal political benefit,” Newton said.
Theft of programs receiving federal funds and theft of government money could also apply, since the $10 million came from a program that receives federal funds, he said.
“Public officials cannot intentionally misapply public money for private gain,” Newton said. He added that the law against theft of programs receiving federal funds is often used to prosecute state officials who steal public money.
The allegations could also invite healthcare fraud charges. Medicaid money cannot be diverted to organizations fighting “poverty elimination, drug cessation and recovery, recreational marijuana use ballot measures, or political activities,” Newton said. “
A federal prosecutor investigating these allegations could easily conclude the Centene settlement proceeds were Medicaid funds,” Newton said, “and then investigate whether the subsequent series of transfers of millions of dollars … constituted a scheme to defraud.”
Newton said other possible charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering.
Paul Pelletier spent 27 years as a financial fraud prosecutor at the Department of Justice. He is an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law. Paul Pelletier
‘No way it can be ignored’
Paul Pelletier, who once led the fraud section in the Department of Justice’s criminal division, agreed with Newton’s assessment about the federal laws that could have been violated.
“Any time you’re misallocating precious federal healthcare dollars, that’s a potential crime,” Pelletier said. “State agencies plainly are not allowed to distribute healthcare funds any way they want.”
Whether the federal government pursues the case could depend on the priorities of Attorney General Pam Bondi — and DeSantis’ sometimes-frosty relationship with President Donald Trump.
Andrade said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida should investigate. He said last week he believed Uthmeier and the foundation’s lawyer, Jeff Aaron, “engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud.” Aaron has denied doing anything wrong.
A spokesperson for the office, which doesn’t have an appointed U.S. attorney in charge, declined to comment.
Blau, who helped create and implement federal money-laundering statutes while working in Miami on high-profile drug trafficking cases in the 1980s, said the amount of money involved — $10 million — is “so large that there will be no way it can be ignored.”
“That’s a lot of bucks that goes out the back door,” Blau said.
DeSantis has called the $10 million “kind of like a cherry on top” of Centene’s settlement with the state.
“I just don’t understand that,” Blau said. “If it was part of a Medicaid settlement, then the $10 million should not have been parceled out and sent to a charity. It should have been sent back to the state of Florida.”
He said the case would be prime for a grand jury investigation and surmised there could be multiple witnesses who could be flipped.
“When I step away from this and look at it from a neutral standpoint,” Blau said, “it appears that there’s enough here clearly for this case to be federally investigated.”
Charles Blau helped craft the federal money laundering laws in the 1980s. He worked for the Department of Justice for 17 years and spent four years as a state prosecutor. Charles Blau
The former federal prosecutors
Here are the four former federal prosecutors who laid out possible crimes in the Hope Florida saga:
| Charles Blau worked for the Department of Justice for 17 years and spent four years as a state prosecutor. He helped craft the federal money laundering laws in the 1980s. He ran a money laundering task force in Miami and prosecuted Great American Bank for money laundering. Blau lives in Dallas, Texas. |
|---|
| Stefan Cassella served at the U.S. Department of Justice as deputy chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section. He litigated some of the government’s most significant forfeiture and money laundering cases and helped craft many of the statutes for those crimes. He is an expert witness and consultant in Laurel, Maryland. |
| Scott Newton is an ex-FBI agent who became an assistant U.S. attorney and has decades of experience prosecuting and defending white collar crime like health care fraud and public corruption. He works for the law firm Baker Donelson out of the Jackson, Mississippi and Washington, D.C. offices. |
| Paul Pelletier spent 27 years as a financial fraud prosecutor at the Department of Justice and led more than 100 federal jury trials, including for money laundering, health care fraud and white-collar crimes. At the department’s headquarters, he served as chief of the criminal division’s fraud section, overseeing health care prosecutions across the country. He is an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law, teaching courses on international money laundering and corruption. He lives near Washington, D.C. |
By ALEXANDRA GLORIOSO. LAWRENCE MOWER and JUSTIN GARCIA/Herald Times
