MIAMI – Andrew Gillam, the Democrat who lost the race for governor of Florida in 2018 by Ron DeSantis, surrendered to federal authorities in Tallahassee on Wednesday after he and a close associate were charged with conspiracy and 19 counts of fraud about how raised and used funds when he was mayor of Tallahassee and a candidate for governor.
Gillam, 42, was also charged with giving false testimony to the FBI. He is due to appear in court on Wednesday afternoon.
The arrest is the latest departure from Mr Gillam’s ascending career. He reached 32,000 votes from the governor’s post – making him the first black governor of Florida and a future reliable White House – only to lose his political direction and face personal struggles. In 2020, police found him in a hotel room in Miami Beach, where another man was suffering from a possible drug overdose.
The allegations stem from a federal investigation by the Tallahassee City Hall that began in 2015 and involved undercover FBI agents posing as developers. The findings of the investigation, including that Mr. Gillam was communicating with undercover agents in New York, where they took a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty and saw the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton,” were a problem in the 2018 campaign. DeSantis, a Republican, said at the time that Mr Gillam could not be trusted to run the country.
The 21-point indictment against Mr Gillam shows that the grand jury filed charges against him on June 7. Sharon Lettman-Hicks, 53, a confidant of Mr Gillum since he was in college, has also been charged.
In a statement, Mr Gillam said he had run all his political campaigns “with integrity”.
“Don’t be fooled that this case is not legal, it is political,” he said. “I’ve had a target on my back since I was mayor of Tallahassee. They did not find anything then and I am fully confident that my legal team will prove my innocence now.
The indictment covers events involving Mr Gillum and Ms Lettman-Hicks from 2016 to 2019. The allegations against Mr Gillum in false statements relate to his interaction with undercover agents.
According to the indictment, starting in 2016, Mr. Gillam and two unnamed associates requested contributions to the campaign from undercover agents for Mr. Gillam’s newly formed Political Action Committee in Florida. To keep the names of the agents confidential, the contributors promised to direct the contributions in other ways, including through Ms. Letman-Hicks’ company, P&P Communications. In return, “unencumbered government contracts” were promised, according to one unnamed associate.
Mr Gillam told one of the undercover agents that he “should share in his contribution to the campaign and projects in Tallahassee”, the indictment said, adding that Mr Gillam also “shows that he looks favorably” on the proposed projects. for the development of the undercover agent.
The indictment says that when Mr. Gillam spoke voluntarily with FBI agents in 2017, he “falsely presented” that undercover agents posing as developers never offered him anything and that he stopped to communicate with them after they tried to link their contributions to support for potential projects in Tallahassee.
The allegations of fraud and conspiracy relate to Mr Gillum’s relationship with Ms Lettman-Hicks in relation to P&P Communications and Mr Gillum’s campaign.
In 2017, when he became a candidate for governor, Mr. Gillam resigned from his position in the People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group whose office in Tallahassee was rented by Ms. Letman-Hicks. Mr. Gillam lost his annual salary of $ 122,500, and Ms. Letman-Hicks lost $ 3,000 in monthly rent. Mr. Gillam also received about $ 70,500 a year as mayor, a position he held from 2014 to 2018.
Mr. Gillam then became an employee of P&P Communications, where he received a monthly salary of $ 10,000. According to the indictment, Mr. Gillam’s hiring was “just a cover used to secure the money he lost” after his resignation from the People for the American Way.
When Mr. Gillam and Ms. Lettman-Hicks requested $ 50,000 in grants from two unnamed organizations, the money was intended to be used for the Campaign to Protect Local Decisions, an effort by Mr. Gillam to fight the state to prevent the power of local authorities. Instead, according to the indictment, the money eventually went to P&P Communications to pay Mr Gillum.
In 2018, according to the indictment, Mr. Gillam and Ms. Letman-Hicks defrauded an unnamed campaign donor who donated $ 250,000 to Mr. Gillam’s campaign. Instead, $ 150,000 was diverted to Mr. Gillum’s Political Action Committee and P&P Communications.
According to the indictment, in November 2018, 130,000 dollars from the campaign should have gone to the efforts to “go to the polls”. Instead, $ 60,000 went to P&P Communications, which was used in part to pay Mr. Gillum $ 20,000 in bonuses from November 20 to 29, 2018.
In the end, it was falsely mentioned in Mr Gillum’s financial report as a reimbursement of “Exit the vote”.
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