A Florida grand jury said $10 million was misused. A court just ordered its report destroyed

A Florida grand jury looked at where $10 million at the centre of the Hope Florida fight went and called it "misappropriated." Then it charged nobody.

On Wednesday 7 October, a state appeals court went further than anyone expected. It ordered the whole grand jury report expunged. That means wiped from the court record, every page.

Governor Ron DeSantis called the ruling "the judicial equivalent of a death-by-firing squad to the Hope Florida Hoax." His critics say a court order cannot unread a report that has been public since August. Searches for Casey DeSantis jumped across the US as the news spread.

So what happened to the money, and why did a court order the findings erased?

What is Hope Florida?

Hope Florida is a welfare program launched in 2021 by First Lady Casey DeSantis. The idea is to steer people off government help and toward churches, charities and businesses that can help them find work.

It has a charity arm called the Hope Florida Foundation. That foundation is where the story starts.

Florida's biggest Medicaid company, Centene, was accused of overcharging the state. Medicaid is the health cover for people on low incomes, and the state pays for it. Centene agreed to settle for $67 million. The state got $57 million. The other $10 million went straight to the Hope Florida Foundation.

85%15%

Florida state	57.00$m	85%
Hope Florida Foundation	10.00$m	15%
Total settlement	67.00$m	100%

Source: CBS News Miami and WUSF reporting on the settlement

Photo: The Bushranger / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Where did the $10 million go?

The foundation gave two grants of $5 million each. One went to Secure Florida's Future, a nonprofit tied to the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The other went to Save Our Society From Drugs.

Both groups then gave money to a political committee called Keep Florida Clean. That committee was run by James Uthmeier, who was then the governor's chief of staff. He is now Florida's attorney general.

Keep Florida Clean fought the 2024 ballot measure to make recreational marijuana legal. The measure failed to reach the 60% of votes it needed.

Uthmeier has said he was not involved in the settlement talks about the Hope Florida payment. He has said everything about it "seems legal."

What did the grand jury say?

The grand jury in Leon County, home of the state capital, finished its report in January. It ran to 116 pages, with a 19-page report and 97 pages of exhibits.

It found the $10 million was "misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities." It said Uthmeier directed the money to the two nonprofits that passed most of it to his committee.

Read nextTrump says he held back on Clinton, Obama and Biden. Read the line that came next

But it indicted nobody. It said there was not enough evidence to charge anyone with a crime.

The probe began with a Republican lawmaker. In 2025, state Representative Alex Andrade led a House inquiry that found loose controls at the foundation. He has accused Uthmeier of wire fraud and money laundering. Uthmeier denies it and has hit back at Andrade.

Why did the appeals court expunge the Hope Florida report?

The First District Court of Appeal gave two main reasons. Judge Lance Neff wrote the 19-page opinion. DeSantis appointed him to the court in March, two months after the report was finished.

The first reason is about what a grand jury is for. The court wrote: "A grand jury may investigate and report, but it may not declare conduct unlawful and then decline to charge it, and it may not condemn people by name without indicting them."

In plain words: If you think someone broke the law, charge them. Do not call them guilty in a report and leave them no way to fight back.

The court also rejected the heart of the report. It said the $10 million "was never public money." The cash passed from Centene directly to Hope Florida, so the state never received or spent it. The judges said Florida's lawmakers had not made that kind of side payment illegal.

Photo: Office of the Attorney General, State of Florida / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

How did the Hope Florida grand jury report leak?

The second reason is the leak itself.

Under Florida law, a grand jury report that charges nobody is supposed to stay sealed at first. The people it names get a copy and a chance to ask a judge to cut or kill it.

That did not happen here. The court found State Attorney Jack Campbell's office sent the confidential report to at least 49 people in two mass emails. Some should never have received it, the court said, including Representative Andrade.

"The violation lies in the disclosure itself," the judges wrote.

Campbell says the law bars him from talking about anything to do with the grand jury. CBS News Miami published a full, unredacted copy on 26 August. It has not said where it got it.

Can a leaked report really be erased?

On paper, yes. In real life, not quite.

Trending nowPetrol broke R30 a litre. We followed the money

In July, a lower court judge, J. Lee Marsh, had already struck the witness names, all 97 pages of exhibits and several findings. But he let the rest stand. He said the cuts did not change the report's overall message.

The appeals court reversed him. Now the whole thing must go from the court record.

The order covers official court files. Copies that news outlets published months ago are a different matter, and the report had already been widely read.

So the fight now turns to the leak. "There's been one crime and it's the people who leaked the report illegally," DeSantis said at a press event in Miami. He wants the leaker found and charged. Asked about Campbell, he added, "I'm not saying he's the one who did it."

Photo: Michael Rivera / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

What does this mean for Casey DeSantis and James Uthmeier?

For Uthmeier, the ruling is a clear legal win. He brought the appeal himself, through his lawyer Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general. His deputy chief of staff, Jeremy Redfern, posted "COMPLETE AND TOTAL VICTORY!"

For Casey DeSantis, it is more about her name. Hope Florida is her signature project. She was once tipped to run for governor in 2026, but she never entered the race. Byron Donalds won the Republican primary on 18 August and faces Democrat David Jolly on 3 November.

In 2025, a legislative investigator told NBC News there was no sign she had broken any law.

Not everyone is cheering. Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said: "Erasing the report does not erase those findings." Michael Barfield of the Florida Center for Government Accountability called the appeal "one-sided." He says his group was not told about key filings, even though a judge had let it join the case.

Fights over who gets to judge the people at the top are loud in US politics this year. And as in the row over what the BBC's own pay figures really showed, both sides read the same numbers and see a different story.

What happens next with Hope Florida?

The ruling is not final yet. The losing side still has time to ask the court for a rehearing.

DeSantis is pushing for a criminal probe into the leak. Andrade has not commented on the ruling. And the money trail itself has not changed: Centene to Hope Florida, Hope Florida to two nonprofits, the nonprofits to a committee that fought a ballot measure.

"This whole thing has been a joke," DeSantis said on 8 October.

The court has now ruled on the paper. The money trail is still there for anyone to read, and on 3 November, Florida's voters get their turn.