Photo via Baldwin County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Office.
Former Democratic nominee for Florida Governor Andrew Gillum is back in jail after missing a drug test and then testing positive for methamphetamine, according to a report by TMZ.
Gillum, 46, was mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018. He lost the 2018 gubernatorial race to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) by a mere 34,000 votes out of more than eight million cast, a 0.4% margin that required a recount under Florida law to finalize the result.
Last month, TMZ reported that Gillum had been arrested in Daphne, Alabama after police pulled him over for driving erratically. He was released the following day. Prosecutors have charged him with felony possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), misdemeanor possession of marijuana (the “personal use” level charge), and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.
TMZ had a follow-up report Friday with Gillum’s latest legal woes.
According to the report, Baldwin County Assistant D.A. John Oxford told TMZ that Gillum’s conditions for release included a randomized drug testing program called “color code drug testing.” Under the program, Gillum was assigned a color by the court and is required to call a hotline number daily; if the message on the line reads out his color, he is supposed to report that day for a drug test.
Gillum had passed a drug test a few weeks after his arrest, but recently his color was called and he failed to show up for the drug test, Oxford said. He already had a court hearing scheduled for Thursday, so when he showed up, a drug test was administered, coming back positive for methamphetamine.
He was then taken back into custody.
Gillum has had prior brushes with the law. In 2020, he and another man were found in a Miami Beach hotel room after a third man in the room called 911, worried they had overdosed on drugs. The man who called 911 told paramedics he had found Gillum seemingly very inebriated and throwing up, and his companion had collapsed and was throwing up on a bed. Local news reported at the time that bags of what was suspected to be crystal meth were found in the room.
Gillum was not charged — prosecutors cited the difficulty of proving any of the drugs found in the room belonged to Gillum — but a few days later he announced he was stepping away from politics and entering rehab. He quit his gig as a CNN commentator and resigned from a PAC he had founded.
Gillum denied using drugs but admitted he had an alcohol abuse problem.
He was later arrested by the FBI in 2022 after a years-long public corruption investigation connected to his time as mayor. Gillum and his longtime adviser Sharon Lettman-Hicks were indicted for multiple federal charges accusing him and his associates of illegally soliciting campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents, diverting some of the contributions through Lettman-Hicks’ consulting firm for personal use, and lying to the FBI.
Gillum pleaded not guilty and in 2023, a jury found him not guilty on some of the counts against him and could not reach a verdict on the others.
Prosecutors dismissed the remaining charges in May 2023.
The post Democrat Who Narrowly Lost To Ron DeSantis Back in Jail After Failing Drug Test first appeared on Mediaite.
