Prosecutors in Florida are warning TV stations of a legal price for airing one campaign ad aimed at a top Republican.
The Tampa Bay Times reported on Tuesday that 13th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Suzy Lopez sent letters to several Tampa Bay-area broadcasters cautioning them against running a Florida Democratic Party ad that hits Attorney General James Uthmeier over a grand jury investigation into Hope Florida. She told stations she wanted them “fully aware of the potential criminal consequences” of doing so.
Recipients included WTVT, Spectrum Bay News 9, Telemundo and WTSP. Lopez, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed in 2022 after suspending her elected predecessor, warned that violating the state’s grand jury secrecy law is a first-degree misdemeanor that can also bring criminal contempt. “Whether to proceed is your decision, but you do so at your own legal risk,” she wrote.
State Attorney Brian Haas of the 10th Judicial Circuit sent the same letter to stations in his region on Friday. He didn’t respond to the Times.
The ad claims “a leaked grand jury report found taxpayer money was quietly moved into a dark money political committee that James Uthmeier controlled, not to Florida families.” Uthmeier, DeSantis’ former chief of staff, chaired KEEP Florida Clean, a committee that fought legalizing recreational marijuana, and is now running to hold onto the post to which DeSantis appointed him.
The grand jury had described a “sophisticated scheme” in which $10 million from a Medicaid settlement passed through the Hope Florida Foundation to that committee. But this month, the 1st District Court of Appeal ordered the report expunged. Judge Lance Neff, a DeSantis appointee, wrote that the administration didn’t misappropriate funds and found that Tallahassee-area State Attorney Jack Campbell shared the secret report widely as well. Lopez wrote that the report’s leak to CBS Miami earlier this year doesn’t change what the law requires.
The prosecutors’ letters followed an email that Republican Party of Florida lawyer Ben Gibson, who worked on Uthmeier’s transition team, sent to broadcasters statewide that same Friday, copying Lopez, Haas and other state attorneys. The party also sued over the ad that day, naming gubernatorial candidate David Jolly and Jose Javier Rodriguez, Uthmeier’s opponent, among other Democrats.
Democratic leaders have said they’re keeping the ad up.
Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, told the Times the GOP’s attack on the ads “absolutely” intrudes on the First Amendment, since media reports on the expunged material are still out there. On whether Democrats can point to material that’s already public, he said, “I think that the court is going to find that it can.”
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