Judge dismisses misdemeanor charges against two St. Johns commissioners, case not over

St. Johns County Courthouse south entrance in St. Augustine, Florida, where the case was heard. Dated file photo from 2016, shown for location context only. Photo: Michael Rivera / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Resized; website wordmark added. Photo source · License

A circuit judge on Friday dismissed misdemeanor charges against four of the five people accused in a scheme to mail a fake Republican voter guide before St. Johns County's 2024 primary, including two sitting county commissioners. The dismissal was procedural, not a ruling on guilt or innocence, and it remains unclear whether the four counts will be refiled where the law says they belong.

Timeline of the fake voter guide case

1. Aug. 1–15, 2024

   Guide allegedly produced and distributed, falsely presented as an official St. Johns GOP publication

2. July 7, 2026

   Charges filed against the five defendants

3. Sept. 10, 2026

   All five defendants move to dismiss their charges

4. Oct. 2, 2026

   Judge Davis dismisses the misdemeanor counts against four defendants from circuit court

5. Oct. 5, 2026 (expected)

   Davis expected to rule on Jordan's First Amendment challenge

Source: news4jax.com; stjohnstattler.org

Who was charged, who stays in circuit court

The defendants are District 2 Commissioner Sarah Arnold, District 1 Commissioner Christian Whitehurst, former St. Augustine Beach Mayor and current commissioner Dylan Rumrell, campaign manager Briana Jordan, and Jamie Johnson.

Jordan is the only one of the five facing a felony, a third-degree charge of tampering with physical evidence, and that charge is what keeps her case in circuit court even though her companion misdemeanor counts were not dismissed Friday.

What Friday's ruling does and doesn't decide

Judge William E. Davis found that Florida law sends standalone misdemeanors to county court, not circuit court, and that only Jordan's felony charge qualified the group for circuit court. The ruling addressed which courtroom hears the case, not whether the underlying allegations are true.

Davis is hearing the case at all because both circuits that would normally handle it, the 7th Circuit covering St. Johns County and the 4th Circuit covering Jacksonville, recused themselves.

The allegations

Prosecutors allege the five defendants worked together between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15, 2024, to produce and distribute a guide that falsely presented itself as an official publication of the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee, without the disclosures state law requires under Florida Statute 106.1436.

What's next

Davis is expected to rule by Monday on a separate First Amendment challenge raised by Jordan's attorney, who argued the law restricts political speech; prosecutors have countered that the offense is presenting the guide as authorized, not its political content.

Whether the four dismissed misdemeanor counts get refiled in county court is not yet on the record. When the charges were first filed in July, attorneys for Arnold, Whitehurst and Rumrell said in a joint statement that the three look forward to the matter's conclusion and would have no further comment.