TALHASSEE – A lawyer for the Hope Florida Foundation said Thursday he could not answer questions about what to do with the $10 million contribution until he hires another lawyer.
At the charity’s first public committee meeting, Attorney Jeff Aaron said he didn’t want to answer questions about whether the donation was legal due to “claims” against him.
Florida officials “overse” Medicaid contractor Centnae to give charities $10 million as part of an over-settlement last year.
The donation, and where the money was, was called “illegal” by some state lawmakers, threatening the future of hope for the Florida program and its charity department. The program launched by First Lady Casey DeSantis aims to help Floridians receive government assistance.
After the charity received $10 million, then-secretary of staff, Gov. Ron DeSantis, told the two nonprofits to request $5 million in grants from the foundation for each nonprofit, House Rep. Alex Andrade, a Republican of Pensacola, said this week. The foundation’s chairman approved two grants after receiving legal advice from Aaron.
The two organizations then sent $8.5 million to a political committee controlled by then-head of staff James Uthmeier. Desantis has appointed Florida Attorney General as Uthmeier this year.
The Florida Foundation, created in 2023, has met three times before, but has only been recorded one to a few minutes. There were no budgets or by-laws that violated state law, and no tax returns were filed.
Thursday’s virtual meeting was six hours behind when it was hijacked by racists and pornographic images, and was supposed to remedy those issues.
The $10 million donation didn’t come close to the end when members of Stephanie White, the husband of Pensacola’s adoption lawyer and former Republican MP Frank White asked.
“The elephant in the room is a $10 million settlement,” White said. “Was it public money that was used?” she asked if everything the board did in connection with money is legal.
Aaron said he cannot discuss it without acquiring his own lawyer because of Andrede’s accusations against him. Andredo asked him to testify at the House Committee next week.
“In light of these allegations and the noise around it, I will probably bring in a Dispute Council to keep everything looking good and avoid the emergence of injustice,” he said. “There’s nothing to hide.”
He said that following the meeting, the move to hire external lawyers should be “from abundant care” based on Florida bar rules.
Andredo said this week that the state’s money usage “seems to be a conspiracy to pay for campaign activities with Medicaid money.” He said federal prosecutors should “worried” about it.
At the beginning of Thursday’s meeting, Andredo said the board should seek to recover $10 million, making sure it doesn’t risk its charity situation with the IRS.
The two groups that received the $5 million grant were Florida’s safe future, overseen by Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO Mark Wilson and St. Petersburg-based Save Our Society from Drugs. Both are 501(c)(4) and donors do not need to be disclosed.
“Based on the information we received from saving our society from drugs, we believe that the fraud was committed to extracting these two $5 million grants from Florida’s safe future,” he told the board.
Board member Tina Vidal Duart, vice president of leading state contractor CDR Maguire, reflecting White’s comments, said the board should hire an outside lawyer.
“I think we should have a legal opinion on that,” she said.
