Hope Florida witness says lawmaker investigating program coerced her into sharing info

MIAMI — The Republican lawmaker who spent much of the legislative session investigating Hope Florida is now facing accusations that he bullied his way into key information in his probe.

In a letter directed Thursday to the Florida House speaker, a key witness alleged that state Rep. Alex Andrade pressured her into divulging details about the $5 million her group received from the Hope Florida Foundation by holding a budget request over her head. She also says Andrade told her he would keep her comments confidential, only to share them publicly.

Amy Ronshausen, the executive director of Save Our Society From Drugs, said she only spoke to Andrade, the chairman of a House panel probing Hope Florida, “under duress.”

“Chairman Andrade further threatened to subpoena me if I failed to cooperate,” she wrote in the letter about the Pensacola Republican. “Everything I had been promised by the Chairman with regard to confidentiality had been false.”

Andrade told the Herald/Times he never promised the conversation would be confidential, and said his “heart goes out” to Ronshausen. He said he understood her concern given that the information she shared with him implicated her “in a scheme to defraud a charity and launder Medicaid funds” to a political committee controlled by the governor’s then-chief-of-staff.

“She’s obviously frustrated that this information has come to light, but I categorically deny pressuring or threatening her in any way,” Andrade said.

Ronshausen sent her letter hours after declining to attend a hearing before Andrade’s healthcare budget panel, which he has been using to investigate Hope Florida, the first lady’s initiative to wean people off of government aid.

Through public hearings, Andrade has teased out how Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration steered $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to a charity set up to support Hope Florida’s mission. The charity then split the money between two non-profits — Ronshausen’s Save Our Society from Drugs and Secure Florida’s Future — that then steered millions into a campaign against an effort to legalize recreational marijuana.

The groups are considered “dark money” organizations because, as 501(c)(4) nonprofits, they don’t have to disclose their donors. Within days of receiving the grants, the two groups donated millions of dollars to Keep Florida Clean, the anti-marijuana political committee led by now-Attorney General James Uthmeier.

Andrade’s investigation has been explosive. He has accused Uthmeier and the Foundation’s attorney of committing criminal acts. Texts Andrade says he received from Ronshausen show Uthmeier — at the time the governor’s chief of staff — reached out to her before she applied for the grant from the Hope Florida Foundation. The texts also show that Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron coordinated the $5 million wire transfer she received days after her application.

Witnesses go on the offensive

Andrade ended his probe on Thursday after Ronshausen and Mark Wilson, the chairman of Secure Florida’s Future, declined to testify before his committee. Aaron, the Foundation’s attorney, also said he would not testify.

Ronshausen and Aaron then went on the offensive. Aaron said he was planning a defamation lawsuit, and Ronshausen accused Andrade of strong-arming her into sharing information — some of which she says he has mischaracterized in his public comments.

A spokesman for Uthmeier, who also denies doing anything wrong, suggested Thursday that Andrade, an attorney, could face an inquiry from the Florida Bar for making false accusations.

“It’s easy to allege criminal wrongdoing on TV and in left-wing newspapers, but the Representative should bear in mind that he’s a member of the Florida Bar and must adhere to professional and ethical canons,” said Jeremy Redfern, an Attorney General’s Office spokesman.

In her letter, Ronshausen said Andrade used his leverage to persuade her lobbyist to “make” her take a meeting with him. She said Andrade mentioned a pending budget request by a related organization to the lobbyist, who set up the meeting where she shared details about her request and receipt of the $5 million grant.

Ronshausen said in her Thursday letter that Andrade is now misrepresenting Uthmeier’s involvement in her organization’s decision to deposit part of the grant into his political campaign to fight the marijuana amendment.

“At no time has James Uthmeier directed me or SOS on how to use funds received from an entirely appropriate grant from Hope Florida,” she wrote.

Andrade previously told the Herald/Times that his impression was that Uthmeier expected Ronshausen to use the money to help fund his campaign, but didn’t explicitly direct her on how to spend it.

The lobbyist

Ronshausen’s depiction of the arrangement of her call with Andrade is contradicted in part by her own organization’s lobbyist, RJ Myers.

Myers told the Herald/Times in an interview Thursday that he approached Andrade with information about his client and Andrade asked to speak to Ronshausen. Myers set it up.

“He did not use her project as a tool” for leverage in the conversation, Myers said.

But in retrospect, Myers said he can see how Ronshausen thought the “offline” conversation was off the record. Offline is somewhat of a term of art in the Legislature where lawmakers have side conversations that aren’t public.

“I think Amy thought it was going to be completely off the record, and Alex I guess just has a different perspective,” Myers said.

Myers added: “I think people process information differently under stress. I think the chairman wants to get to the bottom of this… Amy wants to do right by her organization.”

While Ronshausen has cooperated with the House probe, Andrade has had trouble obtaining documents or testimony from other central players, including Aaron and Wilson, the Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO and head of Secure Florida’s Future.