Monique Worrell responds to rumors she’s about to be suspended again

Monique Worrell, the twice-elected state attorney for Florida’s 9th Judicial Circuit in Central Florida, responded forcefully Tuesday to what she described as a credible rumor she is again about to be suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Last night I received a phone call from someone telling me that my removal was imminent and that I was going to be replaced with an assistant statewide officer who used to work in this office,” Worrell said during a press conference in Orlando.

The Phoenix reached out to the governor’s office, but did not receive a response.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier — who has been critical of Worrell’s work — was asked about the rumored suspension earlier in Kissimmee and said he knew nothing about it.

“I just want people to do their job,” he said. “I want people to put bad guys away. When somebody kills another person, or tries to kill another person, I don’t want them to get a slap on the wrist. I want them to go away forever. I want to make sure that they don’t hurt another individual, and any state attorney who disagrees with me on that, in my opinion, is not doing his or her job effectively. That is negligence. That is gross incompetence. That is wrong.”

“We are doing our job, sir. And we’re doing our job very well,” Worrell fired back.

She went on to cite crime statistics that she said made her point, saying shootings in Orlando were down 33% and overall violent crime, burglaries, and car thefts were down, as well. In Orange County, she said, crime has dropped by 28%.

“These are not my statistics. Check with law enforcement,” she added.

She went on offense against Uthmeier, referring to the leaked grand jury report concerning the Hope Florida Foundation scandal that surfaced last week.

“It was last week that I said to my staff, I have received information that some of the funds misappropriated were spent in the media market here in Central Florida, and said that we should look into it,” Worrell said.

“Let me be very clear: In the event that I was removed, it won’t be because we aren’t doing our job, it will be because of concerns about what doing our job could look like for the people on the other end of that report.”

That grand jury report — obtained by CBS Miami and posted on its website Wednesday — did not result in any criminal charges but included multiple mentions of Uthmeier. It concluded that Uthmeier, who was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time, “was in a position of authority over those involved” in allegedly diverting $10 million from a Medicaid settlement intended to help poor children get health insurance, and that his Keep Florida Clean PAC was the prime recipient of those funds.

Uthmeier has called the investigation a “politically motivated witch hunt driven by Democrats and a far-left Democrat state attorney in Tallahassee.” However Florida U.S. Republican Sen. Rick Scott told the Tampa Bay Times in a written statement that the report was “deeply concerning,” adding that “Florida families deserve accountability, not more finger pointing in Tallahassee.”

DeSantis suspended Worrell and removed her from office on Aug. 9, 2023, for “neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction,” and replaced her with former Orange County Circuit Judge Andrew Bain. She legally challenged the decision, which the Florida Supreme Court upheld in June 2024.

She ran again for the seat that fall and defeated Bain by 14 percentage points.

Uthmeier has sniped at her performance in office since she was re-elected. Last fall he accused her of refusing to prosecute pedophiles.

He later threatened her with removal because of a disagreement about whether to charge a woman who shot and killed a man who attacked her in her car during a road rage incident, writing, “Your actions likely constitute a breach of your ethical obligations. And they may also constitute misfeasance, malfeasance, neglect of duty, and incompetence.”

Worrell later dropped the murder charge.

She said Tuesday that her 2023 removal wasn’t because she wasn’t doing her job, “but because of  politically motivated decisions that were not based in fact “

“And I will not allow politics to work to distract me from the responsibility that the voters have entrusted me with,” she said. “My focus is not on political attacks, my focus is on victims, on public safety, on accountability, and on justice. And until the people in the 9th Judicial Circuit tell me otherwise, I will continue to do the job they elected me to do. That’s where my attention belongs, not on politics, but on the work.”

Since being appointed attorney general by DeSantis early last year, Uthmeier has threatened to remove multiple locally elected officials for their stances on working with the federal government on immigration enforcement, but has not actually done so.