Hope Florida Foundation lawyer says he can't attend committee hearing

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Hope Florida Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron said he can’t make a legislative committee hearing this week to testify about the charity affiliated with Florida first lady Casey DeSantis and the focus of a $10 million Medicaid donation probe.

“He informed me today that he has a ‘conflict’” on Thursday,” Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, told the Orlando Sentinel by email. “I’ve asked him to clear the ‘conflict’ and attend voluntarily.”

Aaron told the Sentinel that he had informed Andrade via email Monday that he was only available Wednesday and Friday of this week due to prior commitments he couldn’t change. He also said his mother had been hospitalized and was likely to have surgery scheduled soon.

“Nevertheless, rest assured that I am willing to testify,” Aaron told Andrade via email.

Andrade has been leading the investigation into how the donation to Hope Florida Foundation — part of a $67 million settlement settlement between the state and its largest Medicaid managed care company — wound up with two other nonprofits. Those nonprofits in turn gave $8.5 million to a political committee set up for Gov. Ron DeSantis to help defeat last year’s failed marijuana legalization ballot initiative.

Andrade has said he believes those transactions amounted to an illegal use of federal tax dollars that should have helped sick Floridians.

Aaron, a politically connected lawyer who has done extensive work for Gov. Ron DeSantis, has called the effort by Andrade and other GOP members of the House to look into the $10 million donation “a politically motivated witch hunt.”

Thursday’s meeting is potentially an explosive one.

Andrade has invited Aaron, Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the heads of the two nonprofits that received the Medicaid money to Thursday’s committee hearing to explain what those nonprofits did with the $5 million they each received. The money came from a $67 million settlement agreement with Centene, the a Medicaid managed care provider.

Andrade has said that Uthmeier orchestrated the donations so that money ended up in the fund that DeSantis was using to fight the marijuana amendment. Uthmeier has denied any wrongdoing.

Aaron told the Sentinel Friday that he had no prior conversations with Uthmeier about the donation or the grants, had nothing to hide and would produce any public records that are requested of him.

Days before the Oct.14 Hope Florida board meeting, Aaron said he was given the application written by Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson for Secure Florida’s Future’s request for $5 million from the Hope Florida Foundation. But he said he did not look at the documents until the meeting began.

“I looked at it and said it was fine,” he said.

Several days after the meeting, another grant request came in and Aaron spoke with Amy Ronshausen, CEO of the Drug Free America Foundation and its political committee, Save Our Society From Drugs. He said he sent her a copy of Wilson’s letter to use as a template for her application for $5 million after she asked for a sample application.

Aaron said he was not part of the legal group that negotiated the settlement with Centene.

“I had nothing to do with that Centene money getting over to Hope Florida,” Aaron said. “Where that money came from has nothing to do with these grant applications.”

Andrade said he sent the foundation a letter last week asking for records. He also sent Aaron a separate email “personally inviting him to produce any records he had.”

In response, Aaron sent Andrade an email with a zip file containing 11 files, including copies of the grant applications from Secure Florida’s Future and Save Our Society From Drugs along with instructions on how to have the funds wired to them and text messages with Ronshausen making sure the money was deposited into her organization’s bank account.

Aaron was asked to be the foundation’s attorney two days before that Oct. 14 board meeting, Aaron told the Sentinel. The board approved the contract unanimously, along with a motion to give Chair Joshua Hay the authority to approve grants on his own without the board needing to meet.

Aaron is on a $5,000 a month flat retainer to provide general legal advice “on an as-needed basis.”

David Dewhirst, a senior advisor to the governor, recommended Hay, who is also CEO of Indelible, a major state contractor, that the Hope Florida board hire Aaron as its attorney.

Hay told Andrade’s committee last week that he ran into Dewhirst at the Emergency Operations Center last fall and mentioned the foundation needed outside counsel. Dewhirst recommended Aaron, a longtime friend whose children played together.

”Dewhirst had seen my legal work,” Aaron said. “I represented lots of high profile cases for the governor.”

He was an attorney at legal powerhouse GrayRobinson from 2016 until last September when he and longtime City of Orlando attorney Mayanne Downs started their own firm. Aaron is now general counsel for the agency that runs Orlando International Airport.

The first case Aaron ever got from the Governor’s office was the case of Andrew Warren, the Hillsborough County State Attorney who was fired by DeSantis. Aaron was expected to lose the appeal because it was before U.S. Judge Robert Hinkle, who had a reputation for ruling against DeSantis in previous cases, but he won.

“That case put me on the map,” Aaron said.

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