MEDIA ARTICLE: Maxwell: Florida hid insurance industry’s lies — and tried to stop us from revealing them (Orlando Sentinel, 9-22-26)

When the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel obtained a report that showed Florida insurance companies made misleading claims about losing money, the Florida Senate threatened the newspapers with legal action if they revealed the truth. The journalists did not buckle. 

Maxwell: Florida hid insurance industry’s lies — and tried to stop us from revealing them

By Scott Maxwell | smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

PUBLISHED: September 22, 2026 at 1:55 PM EDT | UPDATED: September 22, 2026 at 6:18 PM EDT

This past weekend’s newspaper carried a blockbuster exposé about how insurance companies — some of which jacked up premiums after claiming they were losing money in Florida — had been playing shell games with their profits.

Records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel revealed that about 50 companies that claimed to have lost a collective $432 million from 2017 to 2019 had actually sent $1.3 billion to affiliated companies elsewhere.

Theoretically, companies can set up and bill separate companies to do work for them. But the damning detail in this story is that the state’s own consultant determined that least 20 of these companies paid their affiliates more than the “fair and reasonable” amount allowed under state law.

So they were breaking the rules while shifting more than a billion bucks elsewhere and then crying poor here in Florida, according to a report taxpayers spent $150,000 to produce.

But the story got even slimier.

First, the state tried to hide all this information from the public — even while approving rate hikes for supposedly struggling companies and while passing laws that make it harder for homeowners to sue insurance companies that stiff them out of benefits.

Second, after the Sentinel and Sun Sentinel got ahold of this information that exposed the truth, the state tried to stop us from sharing it — with threats.

Specifically, the general counsel for the Florida Senate threatened the two newspapers with “civil or criminal” action if we didn’t destroy the documents and “shred all physical copies.”

We did not comply.

Why? Because unlike the politicians and bureaucrats who run this state, we’re not in the business of hiding information from the people who live here.

We’ll talk more about the damning details from the report in a moment. But first, I wanted to share how we got here — what led us to the point where the state was threatening our journalists with third-degree felonies.

It started about a year ago when Florida’s two Tribune Publishing-owned newspapers decided to team up to investigate Florida’s costly and secrecy-shrouded insurance market.

Now, we have quite a few journalists who’ve written stories about the insurance industry through the years, led by the Sun Sentinel’s veteran insurance reporter Ron Hurtibise. I’ve also written a good deal about the issue.

But many of our pieces did more than just raise red flags. They raised more questions.

Yes, about companies using questionable accounting methods. But also about CEOs pocketing as much as $21 million right after the industry claimed it could barely make ends meet.

And about policy prices that rose for nine consecutive quarters right after Florida Republicans passed so-called “reform” measures that they promised would lead to relief.

I was also surprised and disturbed to learn that some companies were peddling policies to homebuyers, even when the state wasn’t sure the companies had the ability to pay all their claims if a major disaster struck. (Even more concerning: The state wouldn’t tell homeowners which companies had failed the state’s financial “stress tests.”)

So the papers embarked upon a year-long crusade for answers.

The papers’ former editor, Julie Anderson, and her husband, Lars, made that crusade possible by making a grant to help fund the investigation. (Via our “Community News Funds” at orlandosentinel.com/donate and sunsentinel.com/donate)

Anderson said Tuesday that she and her husband had read the brow-raising stories and heard first-hand from frustrated Floridians who wanted answers. “We knew that only community newspapers could do this,” she said.

Three reporters — Hurtibise, along with Skyler Swisher from the Orlando Sentinel and David Fleshler of the Sun-Sentinel — then started pulling records and doing research.

That’s when, as part of a public records request, the Florida Senate turned over the 2022 report that showed companies were paying excessive fees to their own affiliates.

One company reported $11 million in losses while sending $166 million to an affiliate. Another reported $81 million in losses but paid sibling companies $174 million. It went on and on.

Well, the Republican-controlled state senate didn’t want those numbers shared or that story told. So it threatened the newspaper.

Let’s pause here to appreciate the severity of all this — government officials threatening journalists with possible arrest for publishing information meant to help taxpayers and consumers.

Also, keep in mind: That threat came on the heels of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration ordering the Orlando Sentinel to “cease and desist” from reporting on the governor’s Hope Florida scandal. (Again, we did not comply.)

And on the heels of DeSantis’ appointed attorney general, James Uthmeier, suggesting that other Florida journalists could be arrested if they kept reporting on the grand jury report in the scandal.

Do not go numb to these unprecedented, authoritarian attempts to control speech and journalism in the supposedly “Free State of Florida.”

Also, though, do not underestimate the courage or conviction of journalists in this state.

The Republican controlled Senate claimed it made a mistake in releasing the report on the insurance companies’ financial shell games.

But it has little legal or logical ground to stand on.

First of all, this was a report — paid for with tax dollars — that Senate staff freely handed over in response to a legal records request. Also, these aren’t some random internal financial transactions we’re talking about. These were transactions specifically flagged by the state’s own contracted consultant as being made in possible violation of state law. And these people want to protect the rule-breakers?

The editors of both papers stood firm in defending our right to publish. “The First Amendment guarantees our right to publish these findings, and we will not allow the Florida Senate’s threats to prevent us from reporting,” they said in a joint statement. “Homeowners deserve to know this important information that hits their pocketbooks.”

A-freakin’-men.

Listen, there’s no doubt that Florida’s insurance market is a troubled one — or that it makes sense that costs in this hurricane-prone state would be higher than elsewhere.

But when public officials spend public money on reports and supposed solutions, taxpayers deserve total transparency about how and why that money’s being spent.

Imagine if the politicians and bureaucrats in this state went as aggressively after the insurance companies that break the rules and deny valid claims as they do the journalists who expose it all.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/09/22/florida-legislature-threatens-newspapers-over-property-insurance-reporting/?lctg=cec4067f939df0228e8632405f98f2ef&active=yesD&utm_campaign=trib-orlando_sentinel-breaking_news-nl&utm_content=alert&utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_cluster=TRIB&utm_profileID=6a5eab07705c2554fcadfa02

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MEDIA ARTICLE: A 72-year-old criticizes Florida’s wildlife agency. They searched his personal data 34 times (Tampa Bay Times, 7-31-26)

Jim Watt, a 72-year-old retired turtle farmer, estimates he has been to more than 30 wildlife commission meetings over the years. The agency he criticizes over their handling of aquatic herbicide spraying has pulled his personal information more than 30 times. [ Courtesy of Jim Watt ]

 

1. News
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A 72-year-old criticizes Florida’s wildlife agency. They searched his personal data 34 times

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said sweeping record searches of outspoken environmental activists were “conducted for public safety purposes.”

By

• Max ChesnesTimes staff
  Published 5 hours ago

Like he had a dozen times before, Jim Watt stood behind the lectern and addressed Florida’s wildlife commission.

“Good day, commissioners,” he began.

“As you know, my name is Jim Watt, and this is my 13th time in front of you, pleading with you to stop killing our wildlife and destroying their habitats with dangerous pesticides,” Watt told the governor-appointed board.

The concerns raised by the retired turtle farmer during his 3-minute speech were the same as always: The state is spraying too many harmful chemicals into waterways in the name of curbing invasive plants.

“In spite of all my pleading over the years, nothing changes,” Watt told the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at its Oct. 5, 2023 meeting in Jensen Beach.

What Watt didn’t know at the time was, just 14 days earlier, an agency staffer had pulled his personal records from a state database used by police when investigating suspects.

The reason given for the search? “Criminal investigation.”

It wasn’t the first time the wildlife agency accessed Watt’s personal data: Staff had pulled his vehicle information three months earlier.

It wouldn’t be the last time, either. Since that October 2023 commission meeting, records show, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has pulled Watt’s data 30 more times.

Jim Watt will be the first to tell you he's passionate about Florida's wildlife. But the 72-year-old retired turtle farmer says he has never made threats against the Florida wildlife comission. [ Courtesy of Jim Watt ]

The 72-year old isn’t alone.

He is one of more than 20 people, mostly environmental activists and the agency’s loudest critics, whose information has been pulled from the Driver and Vehicle Information Database in recent years under the label of a criminal investigation.

That’s according to public records gathered by a coalition of affected activists and shared with the Tampa Bay Times, which has independently verified Watt’s records with the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles. The Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel first reported the searches July 18.

Law enforcement uses the database to retrieve driver information, but the system also includes signatures, social security numbers and medical data. The information is sensitive, so public access is regulated by the federal Driver Privacy Protection Act.

Watt isn’t under criminal investigation, Shannon Knowles, a spokesperson for the wildlife agency, confirmed to the Times. Neither are other activists who had their information accessed, she has told other media outlets. The Times has submitted records requests to determine whether past investigations occurred but has yet to receive a response.

Watt spends his retirement poring over state records about chemical spraying. He then brings his findings into the public square. It’s basically his full-time job: “I’m tenacious — and I know it," he said in an interview.

“I am a real thorn in their ass, sure. But I have never, ever threatened anybody.”

The searches have raised questions about free speech, a potential abuse of law enforcement tools and where the line exists between investigating credible threats and surveilling outspoken environmental critics.

State staffers appear to have pulled Watt’s data more than any other environmental activist in the records: 34 times between June 2023 and February 2025. That’s according to a running tally from the group of activists who were searched, with inquiries into other critics including Chuck O’Neal, a founder of Speak Up Wekiva, and Ryan Worthington, host of the The Florida Excursionist conservation podcast.

The records detail a sustained pattern of inquiries into Watt. In February 2024, for example, a wildlife staff crime analyst sought information about his vehicles. A year later, a separate staffer sought his addresses. One day, in January 2025, staff accessed 16 records.

The records show who searched Watt’s records, when and why, with a field for the agency to track the purpose of every inquiry. All of the searches list “criminal investigation” as a reason.

In a statement, the agency defended its use of the state database to pull information on outspoken activists, saying the inquiries were “conducted for public safety purposes” for recurring commission meetings.

“Assessing credible threats to the people who attend our meetings and work in our facilities is a legitimate and lawful function of law enforcement, and we take every threat seriously,” the agency said in a statement separate from Knowles’ comments to the Times.

A sign paid for by Bear Warriors United is displayed on a digital billboard near the site of a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting in Ocala last year. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times ]

While Watt is a regular attendee of commission meetings, others who had their records pulled are not.

Wildlife staff accessed Brent Fannin’s records seven times via the database, he said. The documentary filmmaker, whose 2024 film scrutinized the agency’s handling of gopher tortoise permits for developers, said he’s never been to a commission meeting.

“I think it’s clear that the unchecked power that (the agency) has is being abused by the powerful people that run it,” Fannin said.

Months after he helped write a legislative proposal that would have reformed who can be appointed to the wildlife board, Fannin said he got an anonymous email that he was under criminal investigation. That led him down a path to confirming that he, along with more than 20 others so far, had their records accessed.

“What is supposed to be a conservation organization is being weaponized to surveil any opponents of development interests,” Fannin said.

In response to media reports and heightened public scrutiny, the wildlife agency last week released a redacted document with a sampling of 17 threats made against it on social media. The Times has requested a copy of the document with the names visible but has not yet received one.

The agency has justified its data searches in statements to reporters by saying its employees have been doxed and that a wildlife commissioner’s business was “targeted” via a protest and negative reviews.

The wildlife agency has faced intense public scrutiny over spraying aquatic herbicides in the past. In July 2023, it stopped publicly posting its schedule of where and when Florida’s waterways would be sprayed.

Officials made the decision over “ongoing threats and harassment” to staff and herbicide contractors, Knowles said.

Roger Young, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, left, Rodney Barreto, chairperson of the agency, and George Warthen, the agency’s chief conservation officer, attend a public meeting of the commission last year at the College of Central Florida in Ocala, where commissioners presented and discussed proposed rules to reinstate a limited-entry black bear hunt—the first since 2015. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times ]

One of the example comments the agency provided to the Times is about using the chemicals in Florida waters: “If you hang the people spraying, they will stop,” the person wrote. It’s not clear who made the comment, or on what platform.

Watt said he didn’t write any of the threats the agency provided and has “never remotely threatened anybody.”

“I can’t control what people say on Facebook,” he said. “I’m very outspoken, but I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

The Times ran a criminal background check on Watt and found a misdemeanor vagrancy arrest from 1971, when he was 17 in Key West. He had a misdemeanor arrest for hitchhiking four days later.

“I didn’t have a vehicle or gas to put in it. I had hair down to my butt. I did it all for the adventure,” Watt said.

When asked whether the agency believed Watt was responsible for the threat — or if the agency could provide examples of violent threats he made that would prompt a criminal investigation — Knowles said: “Ongoing threats and harassment are not specific to one individual.”

At least one Democratic lawmaker has pushed for an investigation.

In a letter to agency head Col. Roger Young on Wednesday, Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, asked the commission to clarify its use of the database. Calling it “baseless surveillance of environmental activists,” Smith said he filed a complaint with the Office of Inspector General.

Activists who have had their information accessed are also planning to sue.

Katrina Shadix, executive director of the nonprofit Bear Warriors United, had her personal information accessed at least 17 times in the driver database, according to the group’s analysis. Shadix said they hope to file a suit against the agency within a week.

“If they’re threatened by bear-loving tree huggers, they need to get out of their line of work and go somewhere they feel safer,” Shadix said. “We love trees and animals.”

The Tampa Bay Times launched the Environment Hub in 2025 to focus on some of Florida‘s most urgent and enduring challenges. You can contribute through our journalism fund by clicking here.

• 

  Max Chesnes is the Tampa Bay Times' environment and climate reporter, covering public lands, water quality, wildlife and everything in between. Reach him at mchesnes@tampabay.com or follow him on Instagram @MaxChesnes.

• https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2026/07/31/fwc-secretly-searching-peoples-records/?utm_source=NewsAlerts&utm_medium=Sailthru&utm_campaign=073126_NewsAlerts_fwc

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MEDIA ARTICLE: News Florida Politics How the DeSantis administration spent immigration emergency funds this summer

NewsFlorida PoliticsHow the DeSantis administration spent immigration emergency funds this summer

Expenses included restaurant bills at Tallahassee restaurants, custom badges and legal costs.

Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to reporters during a news conference on the airplane runway of Alligator Alcatraz in Ochopee, Florida, on July 25, 2025. 

[ PHOTO BY AL DIAZ | adiaz@miamiherald.com ]

By

Garrett ShanleyTimes/Herald Tallahassee Bureau Reporter

Claire HeddlesMiami Herald

Churchill NdonwieMiami Herald

Published Feb. 11

TALLAHASSEE — The DeSantis administration dramatically escalated spending this summer on a years-old immigration emergency — with expenses ranging from private jet flights and restaurant tabs to custom badges, according to a state accounting of how his office is using an expiring emergency fund.

That spending included more than $166,000 on restaurant bills and catering, $717,000 on travel — including a $203,000 private jet bill two days before Christmas — and at least $1.7 million on outside attorneys defending the state’s detention centers in court.

Those costs make up only a fraction of the hundreds of millions in spending, most of which went to private contractors and large operational expenses tied to Florida’s immigration crackdown.

The records offer one of the most detailed looks yet at how DeSantis is using a state emergency fund typically reserved for hurricanes and natural disasters to finance immigration enforcement.

Despite repeated assurances from the DeSantis administration that Washington will pick up the tab, Trump administration officials and court filings now indicate that reimbursement remains delayed and uncertain.

If that federal money doesn’t come through, Florida taxpayers could ultimately foot the bill for DeSantis’ sweeping anti-illegal immigration campaign.

Records posted to Florida’s public accountability website and first reported by the Florida Phoenix show spending by the state Division of Emergency Management has ballooned since July, when Alligator Alcatraz first launched as an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades.

The agency has used the fund to commit $380 million through 83 contracts with private vendors. The largest contracts include $92 million to porta-potty outfit Doodie Calls, $61 million to IRG Global Emergency Management and $52 million to Garner Environmental Services.

The money comes from Florida’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, a pot of cash controlled by the governor. It was first established by the Republican-led Legislature in 2022 to give DeSantis’ office faster access to money during crises. Democrats have long derided it as a “slush fund” for the governor to use as he pleases with scant oversight.

DeSantis first declared a state of emergency on immigration in 2023 under Joe Biden’s administration, allowing him to tap into the fund for immigration enforcement. The governor has extended that 60-day emergency 20 times since then, and leveraged it to justify suspending more than two dozen state laws and regulations.

DeSantis’ administration spent $49 million from the emergency fund on immigration enforcement in the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year, and $44 million the next year, according to an analysis of state spending records.

That figure exploded to $405 million so far this fiscal year after DeSantis aggressively implemented President Trump’s mass deportation agenda, opening first-of-its-kind, pop-up detention facilities run by a state emergency department rather than law enforcement agencies. That’s more than 70% of the $573 million the state reported spending from the emergency fund on immigration over the past three years.

The spending has expanded far beyond prior years, ranging from the multimillion-dollar contracts awarded to politically connected campaign donors to tens of thousands in receipts at Tallahassee restaurants.

DeSantis’ office has used the emergency to pick up the meal tab at restaurants more than 50 times this year alone.

“As the levels of illegal migration increase, the scope of the needed response has increased,” Florida Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Stephanie Hartman said in a statement.

Federal data shows the number of migrant border crossings plummeted last year.

Restaurants, jets and legal fees

Florida law directs the state to use the emergency fund for “administration, training, and operations” for state local emergency management programs, but it does not explicitly prohibit food and travel expenditures.

The state racked up $156,147 in spending categorized as “food products,” encompassing payments to at least 55 restaurants — many in the Tallahassee area, according to a review of the records.

Payments included charges exceeding $1,000 at 41 establishments like Pedro’s Tacos and Tequila, Bumpa’s Sports Bar and Liberty Bar Restaurant, along with thousands spent at Midtown Caboose, Chick-fil-A, Tropical Smoothie Cafe and Bagel Bagel.

Additional charges appeared at Outback Steakhouse, Kyoto Japanese Cuisine and Korean barbecue restaurants. State records also show purchases at Amazon exceeding $10,000 and more than $20,000 at Sam’s Club under the food category. The single largest purchase in the food category was $18,859 spent at Shannon Outdoors, a rural Georgia company that sells insect-protective clothing and outdoor gear.

Hartman, from the state’s Division of Emergency Management, said the restaurant spending was “for food provided to members of the State Emergency Response Team who are activated around the clock and unable to leave the State Emergency Operations Center.”

Travel costs were also significant, spanning $716,989 for airfare and lodging — 16% of the state’s use of the emergency fund for immigration enforcement.

The state paid more than $479,000 to Fort Lauderdale-based TLC Jet Services for private jet flights, including a $203,000 flight logged in late December. The state categorized about half of the funds to the company under supplies and IT services, not as travel expenses.

Though the private jet costs were categorized as spending on the governor’s immigration state of emergency, the Division of Emergency Management said the expense was not actually for this purpose.

“The $203k was used for flights to rescue Floridians from Israel, and the December 23, 2025, date refers to the date the invoice was paid,” Hartman said.

State records also show $145,164 for in-state lodging, mostly at hotels and suites, and $6,297 for Airbnb stays last fall. The emergency fund also covered $27,244 in rental cars and included a $2,557 payment to the Spirit Airlines Charitable Foundation.

The state has used the emergency fund to pay at least two corporate law firms. That includes $1.1 million to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, which is representing the state in a case over whether the state is violating environmental reviews laws at Alligator Alcatraz. Another $606,000 went to Shutts & Bowen LLP, which is defending the state in a case accusing the state of violating detainees’ First Amendment rights.

Smaller-dollar charges included $203 paid to a Tallahassee company that produces customized trophies and badges.

The emergency fund is set to expire on Feb. 17. The Florida Senate voted along party lines on Wednesday to renew it through 2027. The legislation includes few guardrails on how the governor can expend the emergency fund on immigration enforcement.

Senate Democrats attempted to place new limits on how the governor can use the emergency fund. But Republicans voted down those proposals, clearing the way for lawmakers to consider extending the emergency fund without adding new limits on how it can be used for immigration enforcement or other purposes.

The last-minute amendment, filed by Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, would have required the money be used only to respond to a “natural emergency” or to “prepare” for or respond to another defined disaster. Her proposal also would have required approval from the Legislative Budget Commission for any spending that extended beyond 60 days.

A House measure to renew the emergency fund has yet to move through committees.

• 

  Garrett Shanley is a correspondent for the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau, where he tells stories at the intersection of immigration, education and state politics.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2026/02/11/desantis-immigration-enforcement-emergency-spending-hotels-flights/

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