He former Democratic candidate to Governor of Florida Andrew Gillumwho was narrowly defeated by Ron DeSantis in the 2018 election, was acquitted Thursday of lying to the fbione of the charges he faces in a judicial process for corruption.
In a federal court in Tallahassee, in the state capital, the jury could not agree on the other 18 charges related to the illegal use of campaign contributions faced by Gillum and whoever was his campaign adviser, Sharon Janet Lettman-Hicks.
The Prosecutor’s Office, which after the verdict announced that it will prosecute the former candidate again democrat for other charges of conspiracy and wire fraud, he accused both of diverting donations intended for his gubernatorial campaign to their personal bank accounts.
Attorneys for the prosecution told the jury that Gillum was desperate to recover the $120,000 a year in salary he lost when he quit his job at a nonprofit organization to run for governor.according to the Tampa Bay Times newspaper.
Gillum, 43, who was mayor of Tallahassee, tried in the 2018 elections to become the first black governor in Florida history, but lost by about 34,000 votes to Republican Ron DeSantis.
The difference between the two contenders was less than what was necessary to validate the results with the first scrutiny, so in accordance with the law an electronic count was carried out and then a manual one, which confirmed DeSantis as the winner.
After his defeat, Gillum faded into the background and had some run-ins with the law, such as when police found him drunk in a Miami Beach hotel room in 2020 where there were drugs and a man who had overdosed.
So He admitted that he had an addiction problem and vowed to undergo a detox.
The son of a construction worker and a school bus driver, Gillum burst into public life at age 23 as a Tallahassee commissionerbefore graduating with a degree in Political Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
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