U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has been indicted on federal charges of stealing federal disaster funds, laundering the proceeds and using the money to support her 2021 congressional campaign.
Charged along with the Democratic Broward-Palm Beach county congresswoman is her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, according to a statement Wednesday evening from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The charges concern the family-run company Trinity Health Care Services, which received a contract from the state to conduct COVID-19 testing and outreach in minority communities during the pandemic. The state overpaid on the contract by $5 million, which was the subject of a civil suit by the Division of Emergency Management that was settled earlier this year.
Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, is the former CEO of the family-owned company.
The Justice Department statement said that “the defendants conspired to steal that $5 million and routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source. Prosecutors allege that a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds was used as candidate contributions to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign and for the personal benefit of the defendants.”
The government also said Cherfilus-McCormick and Nadege Leblanc arranged additional contributions using straw donors, and that funneled other money that came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency-funded contract to “friends and relatives who then donated to the campaign as if using their own money.”
The full federal grand jury indictment likely wouldn’t be available before Thursday, according to an email from the Southern District of Florida Clerk’s Office.
Staffers from the congresswoman’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment or said they didn’t have any immediate comment late Wednesday.
Attorneys David Oscar Markus, Margot Moss and Melissa Madrigal issued a statement Wednesday night on Cherfilus-McCormick’s behalf.
“Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick is a committed public servant, who is dedicated to her constituents. We will fight to clear her good name,” they said via email.
Defendants Cherfius-McCormick, Cherfilus and Leblanc are all from Miramar.
The indictment also charges that Cherfilus-McCormick and her 2021 tax preparer, David K. Spencer, with conspiring to file a false federal tax return, the statement said. The Justice Department said they “falsely claimed political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions and inflated charitable contributions in order to reduce her tax obligations.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, said the indictment shows that no one is above the law “least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain.”
Bondi said that “using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime.”
Gabriel L. Imperato, an attorney who represents Trinity, including in the civil suit that it settled with the state for more than $5 million, said he represents only the company, not individuals. Trinity was not mentioned in the Justice Department news release.
Manuel Casabielle, an attorney for Spencer, said Wednesday evening he could not comment on the “lengthy” indictment.
Cherfilus-McCormick was elected in early 2022 to fill the vacancy left by the death of longtime Congressman Alcee Hastings.
The January 2022 special election in the overwhelmingly Democratic district was largely a formality. The outcome was essentially decided during the Democratic primary in November 2011.
Cherfilus-McCormick won that election by just five votes over second-place finisher, then Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness in a multi-candidate field.
Cherfilus-McCormick outspent all of the other candidates, something that has drawn scrutiny for years and that the Justice Department suggested was possible because of the activities involving the FEMA money outlined in the charges.
Earlier this year, a lawsuit involving Cherfilus-McCormick’s former company, Trinity Health Care Services, was settled after the Florida Division of Emergency Management had sued Trinity to recover what it said was $5.8 million in overpayments it mistakenly made. The money was from FEMA, administered by the state agency.
Before she was elected to Congress, Cherfilus-McCormick was the CEO of the family-owned company but was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Trinity did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, and it agreed to repay $5.62 million.
Cherfilus-McCormick won a full term in 2022. She won a second full term in 2024 when no one came forward to challenge her in either the Democratic primary or in the general election.
She has a 2026 challenger, Elijah Manley, who has run for office several times before.
In September, she filed a $1 million defamation lawsuit against him. Cherfilus-McCormick said in the lawsuit that Manley’s Instagram videos and published statements about her, including suggesting that the incumbent engaged in misconduct, amount to “a pattern of making false and defamatory statements” about her.
The result of those “deliberately spread malicious and false statements” is “reputational harm and public discredit,” the lawsuit said.
Manley’s campaign at the time said the lawsuit was “frivolous.”
In a statement Wednesday evening, Manley said the indictment was “is a sad moment for the people of Florida’s 20th Congressional District. I am disappointed in the congresswoman for abusing the power she was given and instead used it to enrich herself and her family.”
Cherfilus-McCormick has been under scrutiny for most of the time she’s been in Congress.
In December 2023, the U.S. House Ethics Committee announced it had formed an Investigative Subcommittee to examine whether she had violated laws or rules, acting on a referral it had received months earlier.
The Office of Congressional Conduct, an official agency, said in a May 2024 report that there was probable cause to believe Cherfilus-McCormick “accepted campaign contributions linked to an official action.”
The report containing that statement was released a year later, in May 2025, by the House Ethics Committee, which has an investigative subcommittee looking into Cherfilus-McCormick’s conduct.
Cherfilus-McCormick represents the 20th Congressional District. As currently constituted, it is so overwhelmingly Democratic that the winner of the August 2026 primary would be almost guaranteed to win the November 2026 general election.
It’s the most heavily Democratic among the 28 Florida congressional districts. The partisan voting index from the Cook Political Report rates the district as D plus 22, which means it performed 22 points more Democratic than the nation during the past two presidential contests.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis has said repeatedly he wants Republicans who control Florida’s government to change the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts. DeSantis has repeatedly cited one district he thinks should be changed: the 20th, represented by Cherfilus-McCormick.
He has said its boundaries are improper because it was crafted, under the federal Voting Rights Act, with boundaries that made it likely to send a Black lawmaker to Washington. The governor argues that the 20th District’s structure is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, an issue that’s currently under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court in an unrelated case.
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