Andrew Gillum, the former Tallahassee mayor who narrowly lost his bid for Florida governor in 2018, was recently arrested in southern Alabama on drug-related charges.
Gillum was arrested by the Daphne Police Department on charges of possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana, according to online Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office records.
No other details were immediately available about the type of drugs or the circumstances of the arrest. The Democrat has requested the arrest report from the police department.
As first reported by TMZ, Gillum was booked into the Baldwin County Corrections Center after his arrest the evening of July 2 in Daphne, a small town outside Mobile, Alabama. He was released the following day.
Gillum was elected to the city commission in 2003 and as mayor in 2014, serving a single term. In 2018, he pulled off an upset win in the Democratic primary for Florida governor but lost in the general election to Ron DeSantis, then a former congressman.
Following the defeat, in 2020, he was found passed out in a Miami hotel room with a male escort who was suffering from a suspected drug overdose. Small baggies of suspected crystal methamphetamine were found in the room, but Gillum denied using drugs and no charges were filed.
Gillum publicly apologized and went off to rehab for alcohol abuse, but his political career never recovered. He did not immediately respond to a text message from the Democrat.
In 2022, he and a close adviser were arrested in a long-running FBI public corruption probe that led to earlier convictions against another former Tallahassee mayor, Scott Maddox, and two others.
The charges were dropped in 2023 after his trial at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee ended with an acquittal on one count and a deadlock on others. He went on to co-host the podcast “Native Land Pod,” which won an NAACP Image Award in 2025.
(This story has been updated with additional context).
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum arrested on drug charges in Alabama
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat | USA TODAY Network
