TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Andrew Gillum, a former Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, is on trial in federal court for corruption and lying to the FBI. If he is found guilty of multiple counts of wire fraud and plot, he could get a long jail term.
Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee, came very close to becoming the first Black governor of Florida in 2018. He lost to Republican Ron DeSantis by less than 34,000 votes. On Monday, a jury was chosen to hear the case.
Who is in the Case?
Gillum, who is 43 years old, is accused of taking about $57,000 in hidden political donations that were sent to his personal accounts through the company of a co-defendant. Sharon Lettman-Hicks, who was a longtime political adviser to Gillum and a former leader with the leftist group People for the American Way Foundation, is also charged. In 2022, she ran for the state House but lost.
Prosecutors also say Gillum lied about his meetings with undercover FBI agents who pretended to be developers and paid for a trip he and his brother took to New York in 2016 that included a ticket to the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.” Gillum is accused of lying to the FBI by saying that he never got anything from these fake “developers” and that his brother gave him the Broadway ticket.
Gillum and Lettman-Hicks have both said they are not guilty of the crime. Gillum said after being charged that he had “a target on my back” because he was the mayor of the state capital, and he expected that he would be cleared.
Has Gillum Had Other Troubles?
In 2020, Gillum was found in a hotel room in Miami Beach with a guy who seemed to have overdosed on drugs. Police said that Gillum was too drunk to explain what happened.
No one was ever charged with a crime because of what happened, but Gillum stayed out of the public eye for a few months while he got help for alcoholism and sadness. A few months later, he told a TV reporter that he had to accept what he had done.
“So much of my recovery has been about trying to get over shame,” Gillum said on the Tamron Hall show in September 2020.
What Could Be Gillum’s Possible Prison Term?
In the charge against Gillum, each of the 17 counts of wire fraud and the count of wire fraud plot can get Gillum up to 20 years in prison. If you lie to the FBI, you could get up to five years in prison.
Technically, that adds up to a possible jail term of 365 years, but if Gillum is found guilty, it’s more likely that the different terms would be spent at the same time instead of one after the other. This is how federal sentencing rules work.
And since Gillum has never been in trouble with the law before, these rules tend to favor giving him a shorter jail term.
Who is the Judge in the Case Against Gillum?
In federal court in Tallahassee, the case is being ruled on by U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor. In 2018, President Donald Trump chose him for the job.
Winsor used to be Florida’s attorney general. In that job, he was in charge of both civil and criminal appeals for the state. His boss at the time was Republican Pam Bondi, who had been Attorney General.
Gillum said the charge was based on politics, but Winsor didn’t throw it out last year. Instead, he said that Gillum and Lettman-Hicks had to be tried together because their acts were so linked.
