Editor's note: FLCGA and Michael Barfield, parties in the case who were not informed an appeal had been filed, say the First District’s decision would silence any grand jury that does not indict, and that its premise that the $10 million “was never public money” is contradicted by the State’s own records
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Center for Government Accountability (FLCGA) and its executive director, Michael Barfield, have asked the First District Court of Appeal to reconsider its October 7 decision ordering a Leon County grand jury’s presentment expunged in its entirety. The presentment, filed January 28, 2026, concerned senior state officials and $10 million from the State’s $67 million Medicaid settlement with Centene Corporation that was paid to the Hope Florida Foundation, the direct-support organization of the Department of Children and Families.
The motion, filed late Thursday with a 317-page appendix of public records, asks the court to recognize FLCGA and Barfield as parties entitled to be heard, to grant rehearing or rehearing by the full court, to certify four questions of great public importance to the Florida Supreme Court, and to preserve the presentment under seal while review continues.
FLCGA and Barfield were granted limited intervention in the circuit court in March 2026 to test the correctness of any order closing the presentment, and in July the circuit court ordered the State Attorney to notify them within three days of any appeal. The appeals court then enjoined the State Attorney from doing so, and no one served them with the notice of appeal, the briefs, or any order of the court. The October 7 opinion reversed the orders protecting their participation, describing the point as “unopposed.” They learned of the appeal when the opinion was released to the public.
“We were parties to this case. A judge ordered that we be told if anyone appealed, and then the appeals court barred the State Attorney from telling us. We learned of the appeal the way everyone else did, by reading the opinion that had already decided it. We are asking the court to hear us before the presentment is gone for good,” Barfield said.
The circuit court had already repressed and expunged roughly 112 of the presentment’s 116 pages but declined to erase it entirely. The appeals court reversed, applying what the motion describes as an indict-or-say-nothing rule drawn from a 1957 decision. The motion argues that the Florida Supreme Court set that judge-made rule aside in 1977, in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Marko, in favor of the standard the Legislature wrote in section 905.28, Florida Statutes, which permits a court to repress only material that is “improper and unlawful” and recognizes the grand jury’s role in describing “incidences in which public funds are improperly employed.”
“The Legislature wrote the rule for grand jury reports in 1973, and the Florida Supreme Court upheld it in 1977: a court may strike what is improper and unlawful, and the rest belongs to the public. This opinion revives a rule the Supreme Court put aside, that a grand jury which does not indict must say nothing. Florida’s grand juries have reported on the misuse of public money for generations. That is the citizens’ check on their own government, and we are asking the court to restore it,” said Barbara Petersen, counsel for FLCGA.
The opinion also rests on the premise that the $10 million “was never public money.” The appendix assembles the State’s own records on that question. Centene’s first draft of the settlement paid the entire $67,048,611 to the State and did not mention Hope Florida. The Hope Florida payment first appeared in a draft written by the general counsel of the Agency for Health Care Administration, and the executed agreement directs Centene to pay the $10 million “as directed by AHCA.” In February 2026, AHCA Secretary Shevaun Harris told a Senate committee that the agency returned the federal government’s share of the $10 million, as it did for the rest of the settlement. Bank records in the appendix show that the Foundation, which has no office or employees of its own and operates from DCF headquarters, wired the money out in two $5 million payments, to Secure Florida’s Future Inc. and Save Our Society From Drugs, within three weeks of receiving it.
“This was the State’s money from start to finish. Centene offered every dollar to the State. The State’s own lawyers carved out $10 million for Hope Florida, told Centene where to wire it, and then sent Washington its share of that $10 million, just as they did for the rest of the settlement. You don’t repay the federal government on money that was never yours. The ruling says this money was never public. The State’s paperwork says otherwise, and the court never saw it because we were never told the appeal existed,” Barfield said.
The motion asks the court to certify to the Florida Supreme Court whether a grand jury’s fact-supported findings criticizing identified officials’ noncriminal conduct may be repressed solely because no indictment accompanied them, and whether parties granted limited intervention must be given notice of an appeal before the orders governing their participation are reversed. It also asks the court to withhold its mandate and to direct that a complete certified copy of the presentment and its exhibits be preserved under seal until review is complete.
FLCGA is represented by Barbara A. Petersen and Robert Craig Waters. Barfield appears on his own behalf. The case is In re Leon County Grand Jury Presentment, Fall of 2025, Nos. 1D2026-2435, and 1D2026-2369 (Fla. 1st DCA).
Links to the motion and appendix are available here:
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