Andrew Gillum, Democrat Who Narrowly Lost Florida Gov Race to DeSantis in 2018, Busted on Drug Charges in Alabama

Photo via Baldwin County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Office.

Andrew Gillum, the Democrat who narrowly lost the 2018 Florida governor’s race to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), was arrested last week in Alabama on several drug charges.

Gillum, 46, was mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018. He lost the 2018 race to DeSantis by a mere 34,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast, a 0.4% margin that required a recount under Florida law to finalize the result.

TMZ flagged Gillum’s arrest in an article Tuesday, reporting that he had been taken into custody last Thursday by officers with the Daphne Police Department in Daphne, Alabama, and then booked into the Baldwin County Jail.

Screenshot via Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office.

Online records for the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office note that Gillum was arrested on July 2 for possession of dangerous drugs, drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana, and released on July 3.

It is not yet known what circumstances led to his arrest.

This was not Gillum’s first brush 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, for diverting some of the contributions through Lettman-Hicks’ consulting firm for personal use, and for lying to the FBI.

Gillum pleaded not guilty and in 2023, a jury found him not guilty for some of the counts against him and could not reach a verdict on the others.

Prosecutors dismissed the remaining charges in May 2023.

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