Orlando, Florida (AP) – the Florida Children’s Welfare Agency sent a letter to a Florida newspaper saying it to “terminate and refuse” its reporting of foster families for a non -profit story related to Ron Ron Ron House, which is the subject of investigation.
Orlando Sentinel received the letter Friday from the State Department for children and families whose senior employee was appointed by the governor. The letter alleges that the Tallahassee reporter of the newspaper used threats to force foster families to make negative statements about the Nadezhda Florida Foundation when he contacted them for the non -profit organization for the well -being behind Casey Desanis’s signed initiative, Florida’s first lady.
“Stop and refuse the intimidation of these families described above,” the DCF letter said.
Orlando’s executive editor Sentinel Roger Simmons said that the reporter’s behavior agency’s characteristic was “completely false”. The story to be published has viewed grants distributed by Hope Florida to organizations, families and persons, according to Sentinel.
“We stand on our stories and reject the state’s attempt to cool free speech and to reach out to its first right to amendment to report on an important issue,” Simmons said in an email.
DCF on Monday did not give an immediate response to an investigation into the letter. The DCF published the letter of termination and bias on social media on Friday, saying that Hope Florida supported foster families with donations to repair his homes after last year’s hurricanes.
The letter is trying to intimidate Sentinel to publish what may be unwavering news of Florida’s hope in what is known as prior restriction, and previous restriction efforts are usually unconstitutional, said Clay Calvert, Professor Emerit at the University of Florida and a senior associate at the US institute.
If he was Sentinel’s lawyer, Calvert said, he would tell the agency to go with sand.
“DCF can send all letters to terminate and refuse it, but Sentinel is not obliged to follow any of them,” he said. “It really tries to silence any negative coverage before it comes out.”
Talahassi prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation. The Guardian of Public Records at the State Prosecutor’s Office of the Second Judicial Chain, Jack Campbell, confirmed the existence of an “open, continuing investigation” last month in response to a request for records by the Associated Press. The investigation was first reported by Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times.
Republican state deputies in the Own Party of the Union are viewed by Hope Florida and its non -profit foundation, which gave $ 10 million from Medicaid State Agreement to two non -profit organizations. These groups, for their part, gave millions to a political committee chaired by the then chief employee of the landing, who was fighting an unsuccessful referendum on entertainment marijuana.
In April, the Republican state representative Alex Andrade ended the investigation, which he led in Nadezhda Florida, stating that he would leave the rest of the FBI and the Ministry of Justice, although there was no public evidence that they were both doing it. Andrade claims that the flow of funds from the Foundation to non -profit organizations and to political committees is “a conspiracy for making money laundering and wire fraud.”
The governor rejected the Hope Florida investigation as a politically motivated smear against his wife, which he sailed as his potential heir when he was referring to in 2026.
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