Disgraced and failed gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum was indicted and arrested for conspiracy, wire fraud, and making false statements, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
Gillum and campaign associate Lettman-Hicks are alleged to have “committed wire fraud, by unlawfully soliciting and obtaining funds from various entities and individuals through false and fraudulent promises and representations that the funds would be used for a legitimate purpose.”
The federal prosecutors assert Gillum and Lettman-Hicks solicited funds from individuals between 2016 and 2019 “through false and fraudulent promises and representations that the funds would be used for a legitimate purpose.”
The prosecutors say those funds were siphoned to a company owned by Lettman-Hicks, who transferred the funds to Gillum “disguised as payroll payments… for his personal use.”
Gillum is facing a maximum of 5 years in prison for making false statements, 20 years for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and 20 years for wire fraud. Gillum is expected to appear in court Wednesday afternoon, the Justice Department said.
Gillum maintained his innocents in a press release, noting the indictment was a political witch hunt. “Every campaign I’ve run has been done with integrity. Make no mistake that this case is not legal, it is political,” he said. “There’s been a target on my back ever since I was the mayor of Tallahassee. They found nothing then, and I have full confidence that my legal team will prove my innocence now.”
Gillum was defeated in 2018 by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) by about 34,000 votes. Two years later, he was found in a South Florida hotel with “baggies of crystal meth, empty Corona bottles and soiled bedding,” the Daily Mail reported. A gay escort, Travis Dyson, who overdosed on meth, was also found with Gillum, a married father of three.
Gillum later apologized for his behavior and said he felt “guilty for the harm you have caused someone. That’s how you know you’re human. That’s how you know you’re not a sociopath,” he said before entering a rehabilitation facility.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.