The DeSantis administration spent nearly $200,000 on criminal defense attorneys representing a former senior aide who testified before a grand jury investigating the Hope Florida scandal, according to billing records obtained by the Florida Trident.
A longstanding Florida attorney general’s opinion found such payments improper. It is unclear what legal basis the DeSantis administration used to justify spending tax money on criminal defense attorneys for a former aide whose testimony the grand jury found “not credible.”
Florida law authorizes payment of attorney fees for employees in civil actions arising from acts within the scope of their employment. But “grand jury investigations are criminal, not civil,” said Derek Byrd, a board-certified criminal defense lawyer in Sarasota and former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The aide in question was Katie Strickland, who left the governor’s office for a post as chief of staff to the state’s chief financial officer two months before the legal representation began.
“We find that Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, Katie Strickland, not credible. She was the least informative in her testimony. Contrary to other witnesses identifying her as a participant in meetings and conversations, she could hardly recall any details or information regarding the Centene settlement.”— Leon County Grand Jury findings
One of Strickland’s three lawyers was Jesse Panuccio, a former acting associate attorney general of the United States and a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, billing taxpayers $875 an hour.
Who’s who in this story
Katie Strickland — Former DeSantis deputy chief of staff; the witness jurors found “not credible.” Taxpayers paid her lawyers.
Jesse Panuccio — Boies Schiller partner and former acting U.S. associate attorney general; $875 an hour.
Boies Schiller Flexner; Continental PLLC — The two firms hired Oct. 30, 2025; $601,865 authorized. Continental’s client is undisclosed.
Ron DeSantis — Governor; his office approved the bills. Calls the matter a “hoax.”
James Uthmeier — Chief of staff at the time; the political committee he ran got $8.5 million. Now attorney general.
Jason Weida — Then AHCA secretary; called the $10 million a “bonus.” Now the governor’s chief of staff.
Ashley Moody — Then attorney general; authorized the signing. Now a U.S. senator.
John Guard — Moody’s chief deputy; signed despite written reservations. Later named to an appellate court.
Ryan Newman — Governor’s counsel who directed the hiring. Now Uthmeier’s chief deputy.
David Axelman — Current governor’s counsel; signs off on the invoices.
Cassandra Pasley — Health Department chief of staff who signed the settlement, previously unseen, at Strickland’s request.
Centene, Hope Florida Foundation, Keep Florida Clean — The $67 million settlement, the foundation that got $10 million of it, and the committee where $8.5 million landed.
The dates of activity on the invoices track the grand jury’s known timeline and the efforts to keep its report sealed.
A second law firm, Continental PLLC, was retained on the same day as Boies Schiller and later paid $111,387.50 by the governor’s office. Asked about the purpose of the engagement by phone, Continental attorney Lazaro Fields refused to answer, referring the Trident to the governor’s office. Fields did not respond to written questions about the firm’s representation.
The Hope Florida scandal centers on $10 million diverted from a $67 million Medicaid settlement with Centene. The DeSantis administration steered the money to a foundation supporting first lady Casey DeSantis’s Hope Florida initiative, which quickly passed it on to two nonprofits. The report’s forensic-accounting section traced $8.5 million from those groups to Keep Florida Clean, the political committee run by then-chief of staff James Uthmeier to fight the 2024 marijuana-legalization amendment.
The grand jury determined that funds were “misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” For seven months after the Florida Trident reported in February that the grand jury had issued a report, the Leon County Circuit Court refused to confirm that one existed.
The grand jury report became public in August after it was obtained by CBS News Miami, intensifying questions about accountability and transparency.
Read the Grand Jury Report
Grand_Jury_Report.pdfhttps://floridatrident.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Grand_Jury_Report.pdf
The grand jurors concluded that the entire settlement was taxpayer money and “should have been treated as such instead of being allocated for partisan political purposes and without transparency.” DeSantis has insisted that the $10 million was a donation to Hope Florida and not taxpayer money. The grand jury rejected that argument, finding “not credible” the claim by Jason Weida, then secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), that the $10 million was a “bonus.” It also found that a decision by Weida to reduce a portion of the reimbursement was made to circumvent state laws requiring monies to be deposited into the general fund.
The grand jury placed Uthmeier at the center of the misappropriation of state funds, finding that as the governor’s chief of staff he held authority over those involved in settling the case and citing testimony that showed him being involved in directing the money after it reached Hope Florida. The majority of the $10 million, the jurors found, ended up in Keep Florida Clean — Uthmeier’s own political action committee.
We find that James Uthmeier, as the Governor’s Chief of Staff at the time of settlement, was in a position of authority over those involved in settling with Centene. Testimony identified him as having involvement in directing the money after it went to Hope Florida.— Leon County Grand Jury Findings
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks during a Get Out To Vote rally Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022, in Tampa, Fla.
U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, then Florida’s attorney general, was aware of the plan and authorized her chief deputy, John Guard, to sign the agreement with Centene despite his written reservations. DeSantis later appointed Guard to an appellate court and Moody to the U.S. Senate. He appointed Uthmeier as attorney general in February 2025.
The grand jury noted that “virtually everyone involved is a lawyer and acted on the advice of other lawyers,” and that no witness would take responsibility for the decision to transfer the funds or could remember who made it — which, the jurors said, stood in the way of a criminal prosecution. It urged the Legislature to prevent a recurrence, suggesting a law requiring all money received by the state, from any source, to be deposited into general revenue, with “real consequences” for violations.
Andrew Warren, the former Hillsborough County state attorney, cautioned that the public does not know what the grand jury did or did not do. But he said “I don’t remember” is not normally the end of an investigation.
“I’ve never heard a grand jury say, ‘We’re pretty sure a crime was committed but we can’t get anyone to admit it,'” Warren said. “A prosecutor has lots of options when someone can’t remember. You subpoena the records. You get the text messages and phone records. You find the people who are less culpable, offer them immunity, and remind them that a crime was committed and they aided it. ‘I don’t remember’ should not be an obstacle when there’s a significant paper trail.”
Warren said nothing in the report indicates the grand jury subpoenaed large volumes of documents, compelled anyone to testify, or that any witness asserted a Fifth Amendment right. “You can force witnesses to testify,” he said. “That’s what immunity is for.”
Lawyering up at taxpayer expense
The billing records trace a legal effort whose details remain hidden.
The grand jury empaneled in Leon County began hearing witnesses in mid-October 2025.
State purchasing records show the governor’s office signed engagement letters with both law firms effective October 30, 2025, created their purchase orders with back-to-back sequential numbers and under identical terms and rates. Those same records show a combined $601,865.04 authorized for the two firms from the public treasury.
The hiring of both firms was made under an exemption in state law which allows agencies to hire lawyers without competitive procurement. The contract documents show Ryan Newman, then general counsel to the governor, directed the hiring. Newman is now chief deputy under Uthmeier.
Later purchase orders name current general counsel David Axelman, whose signature appears on the invoice pages approving the hours for payment.
The first invoice from Boies Schiller covers Nov. 12 through Nov. 24, 2025. Panuccio billed 14 hours, worth $12,250. Nearly 10 of those hours fall on one day.
On Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, the invoice shows three entries: an 18-minute teleconference, travel for 4.5 hours, and 5 hours listed as “Prepare for, attend, and debrief.”
Nothing in the invoice says where Panuccio traveled to or what he attended. But the combination of half a day of travel and five hours of preparing for, attending and debriefing an event is the standard billing signature of a lawyer accompanying a client to give testimony.
During criminal investigations, Florida law permits an attorney to advise a witness appearing before a grand jury, but bars the lawyer from addressing jurors, raising objections or making arguments.
“A lawyer can appear inside the grand jury room with a client but cannot participate or object to questions,” said Warren Lindsey, a board-certified Winter Park criminal defense lawyer. “It’s a limited role. If a client has questions that arise during their testimony, you go outside the grand jury room and advise your client.”
The grand jury’s presentment states that other witnesses placed Strickland in key meetings about the Centene settlement but that she could hardly recall the details, and describes her as the least informative witness to appear.
Among those who signed the Centene settlement agreement was Cassandra Pasley, the Department of Health chief of staff, who testified that Strickland pulled her aside at the state Emergency Operations Center in late September 2024 and asked her to sign a document, the Centene settlement agreement, she had never seen. Pasley signed it that day, as did Weida on behalf of AHCA, the state insurance commissioner and the chief deputy attorney general.
The effort to seal
After November, the next billing entry occurs on Jan. 28, 2026 — the same day the grand jury returned its report.
Florida’s grand jury statute supplies a framework that fits the timeline. Section 905.28(1) provides that a grand jury report concerning an individual that is not accompanied by an indictment is confidential and may not be made public until the person named has been furnished a copy and given an opportunity to move to repress or expunge the report — with a hearing to follow before the presentment can be released.
Florida law allows anyone named in a grand jury report 15 days to challenge its legal or factual findings.
Strickland, or her counsel, would have been furnished a copy of the report.
Over the 15 days that followed the grand jury’s report, the billing file of Strickland’s attorneys explodes. The work descriptions are blacked out, but the hours are not, with attorneys drafting straight through the weekend of February 7–8. On Thursday, February 12, the last day of the statutory window to challenge the report, three lawyers billed taxpayers to “finalize” and edit their work. Boies Schiller billed 141.3 hours and $103,507.50 during the February billing period.
Another surge came in the last twelve days of May, when the Boies Schiller firm billed 48.7 hours.
The Florida Center for Government Accountability, publisher of the Trident, has filed several motions with the Leon County Circuit Court to unseal the post-grand jury proceedings.
Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh granted the Center limited intervention in March to challenge the closure of the proceedings, while denying access to the presentment and related filings and hearings. A July clarification maintained the restrictions. On Sept. 9, the Center sought an explanation of the legal basis for withholding the court’s own rulings.
Fallout from grand jury’s report
The controversy is consuming the last months of the DeSantis administration and the final weeks leading up to the November general election, in which both Moody and Uthmeier are seeking election. The governor calls the entire matter a “hoax” while Uthmeier suggests reporters who ask questions about the grand jury report are committing a crime. Their Democratic opponents, meanwhile, have accused the pair of stealing taxpayer money and covering it up.
Dave Cuillier, director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida who has spent two decades studying government transparency, said “everyone can now see that all this money spent on lawyers was more about message management than doing anything to benefit the public. It was a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Cuillier said the spending was only half the problem.
“They serve to protect the public interest, but they appear to be protecting themselves from scrutiny. They were doing things that were not in the public interest and then spending taxpayer money to cover it up. It’s a cover-up of a cover-up. That’s just wrong.”
Uthmeier’s Democratic challenger, former state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez of Miami, said the billing records fit a pattern.
“The conspiratorial corruption seems to know no bounds, particularly under my opponent’s watch,” Rodríguez said. “Instead of protecting the interest of taxpayers, he’s running a criminal scheme to steal money.”
Rodríguez said Uthmeier’s promotion to the office charged with enforcing the state’s transparency laws was itself part of the effort to contain the scandal. “His appointment as attorney general was part of the cover-up,” he said. “He’s the one who orchestrated the scheme. The very fact that he’s AG is itself part of the cover-up. It’s beyond the pale.”
Why do taxpayers pay?
The arrangement raises a question the records do not answer: on what authority did the governor’s office pay private counsel for a former employee in a criminal investigation of her own conduct?
Using public money to hire a lawyer for a state employee called before a grand jury conflicts with a standing opinion of the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
In 1994, then-Attorney General Robert Butterworth issued a formal legal opinion concluding that a state agency could not pay attorney’s fees for an employee called before a grand jury investigating matters involving the employee’s official duties. That opinion is still posted on the office’s website under Uthmeir’s name.
“It is my opinion that [a state agency] may not pay attorney’s fees for an employee of the agency who is called before a grand jury for investigation involving his or her official duties.”
Brian Tannebaum, a criminal defense lawyer based in Miami, noted the tension when a government entity agrees to pay for counsel in a criminal case for a state employee.
“If an employee is complicit in criminal conduct, the government entity is more reluctant to pay and may seek reimbursement of fees if there is a conviction. There is always a question when a third party pays fees of whether they are interfering in the case. This is why the Bar has a Rule regarding lawyers having to maintain professional independence.”
While it is not yet known whom Continental represented, the one witness the state is known to have hired a lawyer for was the one who asked Pasley to sign — and the one the grand jury believed least.
Neither Strickland, the DeSantis administration, nor Boies Schiller responded to multiple efforts seeking comments on the payments and whether it was proper for taxpayers to pay for legal representation of state employees in a criminal investigation. Guard also did not respond to inquiries from the Trident.
The records identify Strickland as a client and show that the governor’s office approved her legal bills. They do not identify whom Continental represented or disclose the full scope of either firm’s work.
The administration has not answered the Trident’s questions about the representation. Taxpayers can see the charges. They still cannot assess what their money bought.
The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by non-profit investigative, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.
Michael Barfield is an award-winning investigative reporter who helps strengthen transparency and accountability across Florida. He assists reporters and the public with public records questions and requests, and he oversees and supports the organization’s litigation to enforce open government. He’s a frequent lecturer on Florida’s Public Records Act and Sunshine Law, serves on the governance committee of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Barfield is a former President of the ACLU of Florida, a life member of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and has twice been named by Sarasota Magazine as one of the most influential people in Sarasota. He lives in Sarasota with his wife, Iru.
