Bill Gladson was elected State Attorney for the Fifth Judicial Circuit in November of 2020. He is a former law enforcement officer and career prosecutor with over 24 years of trial experience. As State Attorney, Bill leads a team of over 240 employees who serve the citizens of Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, and Sumter Counties, an area encompassing more than 1.3 million people.

A life-long Floridian, Bill graduated from the University of Florida in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in criminology and received his Juris Doctor from St. Thomas University College of Law in Miami in 1997. During his career at the State Attorney’s Office, Bill has prosecuted all types of crimes, from misdemeanors to capital murder cases. In 2005,

Bill was promoted to supervisor of Lake County, and later served as supervisor of Sumter, Hernando and Marion Counties. In 2018, Bill served as the office’s Executive Director, where he oversaw a budget of nearly 20 million dollars and was responsible for the overall fiscal management of the Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office.

Bill is a graduate of the National District Attorney’s Association Career Prosecutor School in Charleston, SC, as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Senior Leadership Academy in Tallahassee. He is the former President of the Florida Criminal Justice Executive Institute Association and served two terms on the Florida Bar’s Fifth Circuit Grievance Committee. Earlier this year, Bill was appointed by Attorney General Ashley Moody to serve on the Statewide Human Trafficking Council and then by Governor Ron DeSantis to serve on the Fifth Judicial Circuit Nominating Committee. Locally, Bill serves as a board member of the United Way of Marion County. 

Bill lives in Ocala with his wife, Jennifer. They have two grown children.