DAPHNE, Ala. — Former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested on drug possession charges in Alabama after police say they pulled him over for erratic driving and found marijuana and meth in his vehicle.
It’s the latest legal trouble for the ex-Tallahassee mayor, who narrowly lost to Republican Ron DeSantis for governor in 2018 and was once considered a rising star of the Democratic Party.
Gillum, 46, was arrested on July 2 in Daphne, about 11 miles east of Mobile on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. He is charged with marijuana possession and unlawful possession of a controlled substance, the Daphne Police Department said. Jail records show he was released on July 3.
Court records for Gillum’s case were not yet available, the Baldwin County Clerk of Court’s office said. Information on a lawyer who could speak on his behalf wasn’t immediately available.
A message seeking comment was left for the local district attorney’s office.
Gillum is a co-host of the politically themed Native Land Pod, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding News and Information Podcast in 2025. A message seeking comment was left for the podcast’s production company.
In a news release, the Daphne Police Department said officers stopped Gillum’s vehicle around 10:45 p.m. and initiated a probable cause search after one of them noticed a glass pipe on the center console.
They found several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, police said.
Gillum, who served as mayor of Florida’s capital from 2014 to 2018, came within less than a percentage point of being elected the state’s first Black governor, losing to DeSantis by fewer than 34,000 votes.
In 2020, Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel room with a man who had apparently overdosed on drugs. Police said Gillum himself was too inebriated to talk about what happened.
The man survived and no one was ever charged with a crime for the overdose, but Gillum withdrew from public life for months afterward while seeking treatment for alcohol abuse and depression. Months later, he told a TV interviewer that he had to come to grips with what he had done.
“So much of my recovery has been about trying to get over shame,” Gillum said on the Tamron Hall talk show in September 2020.
In 2022, Gillum was indicted on federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges for allegedly funneling tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations through third parties back to himself for personal use.
A 2023 trial ended in a hung jury on those charges and an acquittal on charges that Gillum lied to undercover FBI agents posing as developers who paid for a 2016 trip he took with his brother to New York, including hotel rooms, meals, a boat tour and a ticket to the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.”
Ex-Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum arrested on drug possession charges
DAPHNE, Ala. — Former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested on drug possession charges in Alabama after police say they pulled him over for erratic driving and found marijuana and meth in his vehicle.
It’s the latest legal trouble for the ex-Tallahassee mayor, who narrowly lost to Republican Ron DeSantis for governor in 2018 and was once considered a rising star of the Democratic Party.
Gillum, 46, was arrested on July 2 in Daphne, about 11 miles east of Mobile on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. He is charged with marijuana possession and unlawful possession of a controlled substance, the Daphne Police Department said. Jail records show he was released on July 3.
Court records for Gillum’s case were not yet available, the Baldwin County Clerk of Court’s office said. Information on a lawyer who could speak on his behalf wasn’t immediately available.
A message seeking comment was left for the local district attorney’s office.
Gillum is a co-host of the politically themed Native Land Pod, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding News and Information Podcast in 2025. A message seeking comment was left for the podcast’s production company.
In a news release, the Daphne Police Department said officers stopped Gillum’s vehicle around 10:45 p.m. and initiated a probable cause search after one of them noticed a glass pipe on the center console.
They found several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, police said.
Gillum, who served as mayor of Florida’s capital from 2014 to 2018, came within less than a percentage point of being elected the state’s first Black governor, losing to DeSantis by fewer than 34,000 votes.
In 2020, Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel room with a man who had apparently overdosed on drugs. Police said Gillum himself was too inebriated to talk about what happened.
The man survived and no one was ever charged with a crime for the overdose, but Gillum withdrew from public life for months afterward while seeking treatment for alcohol abuse and depression. Months later, he told a TV interviewer that he had to come to grips with what he had done.
“So much of my recovery has been about trying to get over shame,” Gillum said on the Tamron Hall talk show in September 2020.
In 2022, Gillum was indicted on federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges for allegedly funneling tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations through third parties back to himself for personal use.
A 2023 trial ended in a hung jury on those charges and an acquittal on charges that Gillum lied to undercover FBI agents posing as developers who paid for a 2016 trip he took with his brother to New York, including hotel rooms, meals, a boat tour and a ticket to the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.”
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Ex-Florida congressman convicted for secretly lobbying for Venezuela
Former U.S. Rep. David Rivera, R-Fla., was convicted on Friday of lobbying on behalf of the Venezuelan government without declaring himself to be a foreign agent. Photo by U.S. House of Representatives
May 1 (UPI) — Former U.S. Rep. David Rivera, R-Fla., was found guilty on Friday of being paid to secretly lobby elected U.S. officials to ease sanctions against Venezuela.
Rivera and a co-conspirator were each found guilty of taking payment from Nicholas Maduro to try to repair ties between the South American nation and the United States but never registering as an agent of a foreign country, The Miami Herald and NBC News reported.
A 12-person jury found the former Miami-Dade congressman and consultant Esther Nuhfer guilty of lobbying Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and attempting to set meetings up for Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s then-foreign minister and current acting president.
Rivera was also found guilty of conspiring to commit money laundering and tax evasion.
Rivera had long been friends with his former roommate Rubio and became friends with Sessions when he was in Congress, and after Maduro gave him a $50 million contract he attempted to leverage those relationships.
Both Rivera and Nuhfer were caught having not registered themselves of lobbying for the federal government on behalf of another nation.
The convictions come after a 5-week trial that saw Rubio, who was in the Senate in 2017, when he met with Rivera and was told a plan to convince Maduro to step down was afoot.
Rivera denied that he was working on behalf of Maduro and the Venezuelan government, insisting that he was working to overthrow the now-deposed ruler rather than to promote his interests.
Nuhfur was released on bond ahead of her sentencing, while Rivera was judged to be a flight risk and will remain in jail until he is sentenced.
Rivera also still faces charges in another foreign lobbying case, as well.
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