Jury says Gillum not guilty of lying to FBI; deadlocks on other charges

TALLAHASSEE — A federal jury on Thursday found former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum not guilty of lying to FBI agents but failed to reach a verdict on 18 other fraud counts.

Jurors couldn’t agree on allegations by federal prosecutors that Gillum and his “political godmother” Sharon Lettman-Hicks illegally steered political contributions to their personal accounts during his 2018 run for governor. Gillum came within 32,000 votes of defeating then-U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis.

The jury also deadlocked on all charges against Hicks, 54.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor declared a mistrial on those charges. Federal prosecutors indicated they would seek a new trial.

As the court clerk read off the verdicts, Gillum wiped tears from his eyes and his lawyer, David O. Markus, turned around and pumped his fist to Gillum’s family in the gallery.

Afterward, Gillum said he was grateful for his lawyer, family and “second chances.”

“Jai and I and our family just felt, over these last seven years, under attack,” Gillum told reporters. “Today, all I can muster is gratitude.”

The federal government accused Gillum, 43, and Hicks of illegally steering political contributions to their personal accounts during his 2018 run for governor.

Prosecutors told jurors that Gillum was desperate to make up $120,000 in income he lost when he resigned from his job with a liberal nonprofit to run for governor.

Prosecutors described a complicated web of financial transactions that they said showed Gillum and Lettman-Hicks “cheating” donors and their campaign out of money.

After Gillum lost to DeSantis, for example, he appointed Lettman-Hicks as campaign treasurer. Prosecutors showed that Gillum’s campaign within weeks paid $60,000 to Lettman-Hicks’ company, P&P Communications, for get-out-the-vote efforts. Gillum, who was on P&P’s payroll, then received four $5,000 payments from the company marked “end of year bonus.” The government alleged that Lettman-Hicks never performed the get-out-the-vote efforts.

“The fraud is saying all of this is going to get out the vote,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Milligan told jurors on Friday.

But the government had no direct evidence of Gillum and Lettman-Hicks scheming. Prosecutors urged jurors to look at the evidence in its totality, and they suggested that Gillum and Lettman-Hicks schemed during their numerous phone conversations.

“This is a circumstantial evidence case,” Milligan said.

Gillum’s lawyers said the FBI agent who led the investigation placed a “target” on Gillum’s back and ignored evidence that explained the payments.

“He is biased, ladies and gentlemen,” Markus told jurors last week. ”You can end this nightmare for Andrew Gillum.”

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Both Gillum and Lettman-Hicks faced a single charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 17 counts of wire fraud.

Gillum also faced a separate charge of lying to the FBI about his interactions with undercover agents, who posed as businesspeople seeking approval of development projects during a long-running public corruption investigation into Tallahassee politics.

Gillum was not the initial target of the FBI’s Capital Currency corruption probe. But when undercover agents hired one of Gillum’s lobbyist friends, their attention turned to the then-Tallahassee mayor. During a 2016 trip to New York City, undercover agents paid for a hotel room, a boat ride and a ticket to the hit Broadway show “Hamilton” for Gillum.

Federal prosecutors said Gillum never took a bribe. But he lied to reporters and the state’s ethics commission about the ticket, which he said was given to him by his brother. Federal prosecutors shared text messages and audio recordings during the trial showing that Gillum’s brother didn’t arrive at the show until intermission.

When FBI agents interviewed Gillum in 2017, he admitted meeting with the undercover agents and said they tried to bribe him. When asked if they gave him anything, he said “no.”

The seven women and five men on the jury started deliberating Friday afternoon, after a two-week trial.

Signs of trouble with the case were quickly apparent. By Tuesday, jurors indicated they were deadlocked on some of the charges, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. On Wednesday, jurors asked for paper copies of all the exhibits. On Thursday morning, the judge urged them to keep going.

Lettman-Hicks said afterward that federal prosecutors spent a week on the first count — Gillum’s charge of lying to the FBI — which had nothing to do with her.

“Now, hopefully, we can get our lives back, when the government decides to stop wasting its money, our money, our tax dollars, all of your tax dollars, on a false positive,” Lettman-Hicks said.

Gillum said he felt “hunted” by the case, and he suggested that he might try to address criminal justice reform.

“Maybe one of the things that needed to be revealed to me is that this system is in desperate need of reform,” Gillum told reporters. “And I’ll just say, ‘To be continued.’”