Former federal prosecutor sees potential accusations in Florida’s Saga hopes

TALHASSEE — Republican lawmakers shocked the political world in Florida last year when they accused Gov. Ron DeSantis of representing Gov. Ron DeSantis of committing federal crimes by diverting $10 million from the Medicaid settlement.

No one has been charged, and officials in the DeSantis administration have denied any fraud. However, four former federal prosecutors told The Times/Herald that Rep. Alex Andrade could be on a strong legal basis.

They said at least eight different federal charges, from the theft of government funds to money laundering, could be investigated in connection with dollars that have passed the Florida Foundation’s wishes.

These laws can serve decades of prison sentences. Previous prosecutors said anyone who misdirects Medicaid money could be seduced.

Whether the federal government will investigate is another question.

A former federal prosecutor who worked in the legal voyage for 86 years at the Department of Justice came from both sides of the political aisle and analyzed the Times/Herald Saga. They include US lawyer assistants, former leaders of the department’s fraud division, former FBI agents who became former Drug Directors at the Department of Justice, and former Department of Justice drug directors who helped create the government’s money laundering laws, and former section chiefs of the department’s assets forfeiture and money laundering section.

All four said there was ample evidence for the Justice Department to launch an investigation based on information that has appeared on $10 million so far.

“Very frankly, these funds belong to the state, not the charity or the political action committee,” said Charles Brow, who ran the Money Laundering Task Force in Miami as a federal prosecutor. “So you’d think they’re ripe for money laundering research.”

The central question is whether $10 million is Medicaid money.

Last year, the state quietly settled with the leading Medicaid centers for $67 million due to overbuilding of prescription drugs in the state healthcare program for low-income Floridians. As part of the settlement, the state health department’s state agency received $57 million and directed Centrene to send another $10 million to the Florida Foundation.

The charity sent $5 million to two nonprofits. The group then donated at least $8.5 million to a political committee led by Desantis’ then-staff superintendent James Uthmeier, opposed to last year’s voting initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. The Uthmeier committee later sent $10.5 million to the Republicans in Florida and $1.1 million to the Desantis political committee.

Desantis, Uthmeier and other state officials say $10 million is not Medicaid money, but a separate charitable donation by the company. Uthmeier is currently the Florida Attorney General.

“The story is wrong,” said Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Desantis.

“Once again, the Tampa Bay Times is pushing forward with the story to click on the facts,” he said in a statement. “Your behaviorism doesn’t know the scope.”

“The story is nonsense,” said Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Uthmeier.

“Your handpicked, hungry former prosecutor is sure you’ve told you everything you wanted to hear, but unfortunately, for your story, real law enforcement hasn’t entertained the non-delivery conspiracy theory of state representatives,” Redfern said in a statement.

Former federal prosecutors and Medicaid experts told The Times/Herald that the state’s reasoning that $10 million is not Medicaid money is flawed. Andrade says Florida’s accounting ledger shows the Dasantis administration is reimbursing the federal government a percentage of settlement based on the full $67 million amount.

Taking $10 million from a Medicaid settlement for other purposes, regardless of what is repaid, is likely a criminal, the former prosecutor said.

“There’s a very strong argument here…the action is a scam that not only Florida, but the US is also scam,” said Stephen Casella, a 30-year former prosecutor specializing in Medicaid fraud and money laundering.

8 possible crimes

According to former FBI agent and federal prosecutor Scott Newton, investigators can explore eight potential accusations based on what is known about money movements between organizations.

“The alleged conduct suggests a potential violation of several federal felony laws,” Newton told the Times/Herald in a statement.

Laws related to mail and wire fraud are most commonly used when investigating financial crimes. This is because the government is only using it in some way for fraud, as it only proves that mail or electronic communications are being used in some way for fraud.

Andrade said Uthmeier told two nonprofits to ask the Hope Florida Foundation about a $5 million grant within days of the donation. Text messages/Herald obtained by Andrade and shared with Times/Herald show that the foundation had wired $5 million to one of its nonprofit organizations a few days later. It is unclear whether US postal services or carriers such as UPS and FedEx are used in any of the transactions.

“The defense will defend two near-verbal verbatim timings, allegedly “grant requests,” and will bear the difficult burden of showing that a series of subsequent transfers were not made to hide fraud, including tax diversion and conversion, for personal political benefits,” Newton said.

He said theft of programs that have been stolen federal funds and government funds could also apply, as $10 million came from programs that receive federal funds.

“A civil servant cannot intentionally misuse public funds for private interest,” Newton said. He added that laws against theft of programs that receive federal funds are often used to prosecute state authorities stealing public funds.

This claim could also invite medical fraud claims. Medicaid money cannot be diverted to organizations that fight “eliminate poverty, stop and recover from drugs, recreational marijuana uses voting measures or political activities,” Newton said.

“The federal prosecutors investigating these allegations can easily conclude that the Saint Nay Settlement is Medicaid funding,” Newton said.

Newton said other possible accusations include conspiracy to fraud the United States, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering.

“You can’t ignore it.”

Paul Peretier, who once headed the fraud section of the Department of Justice’s criminal division, agreed to Newton’s assessment of federal laws that could have been violated.

“Whenever you accidentally replace valuable federal healthcare costs, it’s a potential crime,” Peretier said. “State agencies are clearly not allowed to distribute medical funds the way they want them to.”

Whether the federal government is pursuing the case may depend on Attorney General Pam Bondy’s priorities and DeSantis’s priorities, which have sometimes been unfairly related to President Donald Trump.

Andredo said the US Lawyer’s office in the Northern District of Florida should investigate. He said last week that he believes Uthmeier and foundation lawyer Jeff Aaron are “engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud.” Aaron denied doing anything wrong.

A spokesman for the office that does not cover appointed US lawyers declined to comment.

Brow, who helped create and implement federal money laundering laws while working in Miami in the famous drug trafficking scandal in the 1980s, said the amount involved ($10 million) was “so big enough to have no way of ignoring it.”

“That’s a lot of dollars coming out of the backdoor,” Brow said.

Desantis called the $10 million in settlements with the state of Centene “like a kind of cherry blossom.”

“I don’t understand that,” Brow said. “If it was part of the Medicaid settlement, then $10 million should not have been split and sent to the charity. It should have been sent back to Florida.”

He said the case was the best for the investigation of a major ju court, and speculated that there could be multiple witnesses that could turn it over.

“If I look from this away from that, from a neutral standpoint, it seems that it’s here enough to be investigated by the federal government.”