r/Alachua_County

>Judge Marlon Weiss, going beyond what is typically required in such a case, suggested in his order that surrogacy may be unconstitutional. His ruling holds that if unborn children are entitled to personhood — which he implies is correct, citing legal articles in favor of that view — those children cannot be subject to an ownership contract.

>In November, roughly 24 hours after the fathers told the court about the baby’s birth, Attorney General James Uthmeier began pushing to intervene in the case.

>His office is arguing that surrogacy is akin to slavery, saying it violates the 13th Amendment and should be deemed unconstitutional, according to a lawyer representing the family.

>A case is now pending in front of the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The child has been with the fathers since birth and is not likely to be removed from their care.

>This is not the first time Uthmeier, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis a little over a year ago, has injected himself into a normally uncontested court case. His office’s involvement in a 17-year-old’s request for an abortion last spring further whittled down Florida’s abortion access.

>The fact that his office got wind of the surrogacy case is remarkable. The court didn’t ask him to intervene.

>Surrogacy cases are confidential under Florida law. But when Weiss published his order, he wrote that his ruling was not confidential because it didn’t share identifying information about the child or parents. A month later, he submitted it as part of his application to be on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal. And in December, the order was published in a law trade journal.

>It’s not clear how Uthmeier’s office heard about the case. Uthmeier’s office declined to confirm or clarify its arguments to the Times/Herald, saying the case is confidential.

>Katie Jay, an appellate and adoption attorney representing the fathers, said that she’s not accusing Weiss of sharing the case with Uthmeier’s office, saying she has no proof of that. But she added that trial judges don’t have the authority to unilaterally decide to publish opinions from confidential cases.

>“What I am saying is that the conduct I can document — using a confidential parentage order as a writing sample for personal promotion — is troubling,” Jay said.

>

>Weiss was appointed to the Broward County court by DeSantis in May 2025. About five months later, Weiss, 46, applied for a spot on the Fourth District Court of Appeal. He attached the surrogacy order he’d written, highlighting it as one of the most significant cases he’s heard.

>Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law a new congressional map that could help Republicans pick up four more seats in the House — a move that swiftly drew a lawsuit.

>DeSantis, who is scheduled to be in Los Angeles later in the day to speak at the Milken Institute Global Conference, announced in a social media post that he had approved the map. The post merely stated “signed, sealed and delivered,” along with a photo of Florida’s redrawn districts. He followed it with another brief post that said “promise made, promise kept.” The Florida Senate confirmed DeSantis had signed the new map.

>The new map was approved just days ago by the GOP-controlled Legislature and was put into place one week after the governor’s office delivered it to state legislators. Democrats have repeatedly called the map “illegal” and a power grab designed to help Republicans keep hold of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

>The civil rights group Equal Ground Education Fund — along with a group of 19 Florida voters living in congressional districts across the state — asked a state judge to block the new map and reinstate the one that had been approved by the Legislature back in 2022. The lawsuit contends that the governor and Legislature violated voter-approved anti-gerrymandering standards. Those standards maintain that districts cannot be redrawn for partisan or to hurt or help incumbents.

>‘The 2026 plan is, by traditional measures of partisan gerrymandering, one of the most extreme gerrymanders in American history,” the lawsuit states. “Statistics like this do not occur by accident. They are the product of deliberate choices, made by professionals with sophisticated tools and a clear partisan goal: to pack and crack Democratic voters with surgical precision and deprive Florida voters of a fair map guaranteed to them by the Florida Constitution.”

>The lawsuit relies on testimony during last week’s special session as well as from statements from state Republicans talking about how they hoped to pick up seats.

Today, May 9, 2026, I received a call from 352-329-4991 that was a scammer. Everything in this post was a lie from the scammer. Call me an idiot for almost falling for it. I just wanted to pass on the information to prevent other victims from this waste of life scammer.

They said they were Investigator Chandler Garner at the Alachua County Sherriff’s Office, Badge Number 152548 (no idea if this is a real officer or not). He had a southern accent. He said I had a “Failure to Appear” and “Contempt of Court” citation for failing to appear for a Federal Grand Jury summons. I said I never received anything in the mail which isn’t unheard for me since I don’t check mail that often.

He said I wasn’t there at role call. I wasn’t allowed to disconnect from the phone. He would verbally ask for a response from me checking in every 5 minutes. I had to go to CVS, Walgreen, Dollar General, or Family Dollar for 2 “CIC” vouchers that were basically money orders. $490 each for 2 citations. I was taking a lot of time to text details to my wife with this guy still on the phone.

Then I had to go to the Alachua Sheriff Office at 2621 SE Hawthorne Road, Gainesville, Fl, 32641. I would have to pay the money but I would get a refund for my fine and gas. He said there were 15 other people he’s been dealing with this week that didn’t receive the summons either and that this was some sort of clerical error but I had to pay the fine and clear it up at the Sheriff’s Office.

My wife (who wasn’t home when I first received the call) was the one who had the brilliant idea to call the Sheriff’s office directly and the actual Sheriff said it was a scam. She told the guy that he’s a scammer and he immediately hung up.

Jesus fucking christ. Don’t fall for this evil piece of shit like I almost did.

Edit: I tried posting this on r/GNV but it kept auto-removing it. Probably because I created this account 5 minutes ago for anonymity.

Just wondering if you noticed the same? I'm looking at houses under 250k, I used to live in turkey creek golf course community, would be a dream to go back there, but I don't see much up for sale, and it's hard to tell what the HOA even is because anytime I see a property, they have different HOA amounts listed. Is there anywhere I'm missing out looking? I'm coming from PA, and I hear insurance really high and bad in Florida right now, anyone familiar with it who could give me a run down? It almost seems like it's out of my budget to move back, but I have friends who stayed and never left, and somehow they are all doing ok.