A city manager in Florida was convicted after a jury trial.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that the Office of Statewide Prosecution, working with the State Attorney’s Office for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, secured a jury conviction against former Fort Pierce City Manager Nicholas C. Mimms for official misconduct, a third-degree felony. A St. Lucie County jury returned the verdict this month after a week-and-a-half trial.
“Corruption grows in the dark, and our office is turning on the lights,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier. “Thanks to Chief ASP Jonathan Bridges and ASA Brandon White for their work prosecuting this case, State Attorney Bakkedahl, and our partners at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for conducting the investigation. If public officials try to hide the truth to benefit family or friends, we will expose them and hold them accountable.”
The evidence showed that in 2020 Mimms oversaw the city’s public bid to lease two vacant lots next to the Lincoln Theater in Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park Young Professionals won the lease. Two city employees were on that nonprofit’s board: Caleta Scott, Mimms’s niece, and Vennis Gilmore, then an assistant city planner. The lots had been set aside for theater parking. That restriction was not in the public bid documents. Scott’s organization knew it, but the other bidder did not. Allegany Franciscan Ministries awarded the nonprofit a $500,000 grant to build on the lots. Nothing was ever built.
“Florida is a law-and-order state, and that standard applies to the people who hold office, not just the people they govern,” said FDLE Commissioner Larry Keefe. “Public trust is the foundation of good government, and to every official in Florida — if you abuse that trust, we will hold you accountable.”
53-year-old Nicholas Mimms faces up to five years in the Florida Department of Corrections. Sentencing is set for December 11, 2026.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the case. Chief Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Jonathan Bridges and Assistant State Attorney Brandon White of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit tried the case.
In February 2026, the Attorney General launched the Public Integrity Unit to investigate legislative appropriations and prosecute bribery, kickbacks, embezzlement, and other misuse of public funds. Multiple investigations by the Public Integrity Unit remain active and ongoing.
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