ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell has sent letters to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis demanding an end to what she calls a campaign of misinformation that “seeks to manufacture a pretext” for suspending her a second time.
“I write to demand that you cease your ongoing interference with the operations of my office and your efforts to coerce me into surrendering my independence and professional judgment to your political agenda,” Worrell wrote.
The letter to Uthmeier, dated Wednesday and copied to DeSantis, outlines what she calls the attorney general’s “intentional misrepresentation and interference” in several cases he’s brought up in recent months at news conferences and online.
Just last week, Worrell sought to defend herself against Uthmeier’s claims on social media that she unlawfully pleaded down an attempted first-degree murder charge to attempted second-degree murder.
At the time and not dissimilar to her latest statements, Worrell said that Uthmeier was building “another political witch hunt to overturn the will of the voters,” referencing when DeSantis removed her from office in 2023 while accusing her of “refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida.“
Worrell got the job back in the November election after defeating Andrew Bain, whom DeSantis appointed to replace her.
“This is not speculation. Your statements mirror those that preceded by unjust suspension in 2023, which the Florida Supreme Court later addressed,” Worrell wrote Wednesday. “(...) That decision confirmed that while the Governor’s suspension power is broad, the Court will not review the sufficiency of the evidence underlying such suspensions. You are attempting to exploit that loophole — by fabricating claims of misconduct to justify another political removal."
Uthmeier and Worrell were back at it less than two weeks before then, when he accused her on Sept. 26 of freeing accused pedophiles in two separate cases that Worrell said were handled appropriately, one of them by Uthmeier’s office.
“Your public comments show a lack of personal knowledge about sufficient legal evidence, procedural history, and sentencing laws,” Worrell wrote Wednesday. “You did not review the case file, speak to the prosecutors, or meet with any of the victims involved. Yet you have chosen to exploit these vulnerable individuals by publicly relitigating their trauma to advance a political narrative.”
News 6 on Wednesday reached out to Uthmeier’s press office for comment on Worrell’s letter and was directed to an X post made by Jeremy Redfern, his deputy chief of staff, that cited the Orlando Sentinel’s coverage and questioned a reported discrepancy in the case of Kevin Chapman, one of the cases covered during the Sept. 26 spat.
[WATCH: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier repeats call for State Attorney Worrell to ‘do her job’]
Even earlier, on Sept. 8, Uthmeier urged Worrell to withdraw the prosecution against a woman charged with murder in a deadly road-rage incident.
Before that, they had dueling news conferences in April to address her office’s backlog of unprosecuted cases. Uthmeier criticized Worrell’s policy requiring law enforcement to make arrests in most cases before sending them to her office for possible prosecution, offering to lend several prosecutors from his own office to help.
During an update in August, Worrell said her office had made progress with the non-arrest backlog, announcing a five-year plan to fix things further. Her office had nearly 5,800 open cases at the time and only 12 felony attorneys to tackle them, she added.
“Unlike politicians, prosecutors cannot go into court on conjecture or moral outrage,” Worrell said in Wednesday’s letter. “We are bound by law and evidence. Your disregard for that distinction is alarming.”
[WATCH BELOW: Monique Worrell responds to AG’s criticisms]
Uthmeier’s position is up for grabs in the November General Election. He was appointed as Florida’s attorney general when the position was vacated by Ashley Moody, who filled Florida’s empty seat in the U.S. Senate after President Donald Trump tapped Marco Rubio to be the U.S. secretary of state.
Read Worrell’s letter in the media viewer below: