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A federal grand jury in Miami has indicted Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick on charges of stealing federal disaster relief funds, laundering the money, and using it to finance her 2021 congressional campaign.
The indictment alleges that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and her brother Edwin Cherfilus, 51, “conspired to steal” $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds that were accidentally overpaid to their family health care company in 2021 and “routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source,” before ultimately using the funds as candidate contributions to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign.
If convicted, Cherfilus-McCormick faces up to 53 years in prison.
“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” attorney general Pamela Bondi said in the U.S. Department of Justice press release. “No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”
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Elijah Manley photo and photo via Facebook/SheilaCherfilus-McCormick
Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents Florida’s 20th congressional district, is the first Black legislator to represent the district, which includes swaths of western and central Broward County and a portion of Palm Beach County.
She was first elected to Congress in 2022 to represent the 20th District after longtime Rep. Alcee Hastings died in 2021. She won the primary in the heavily Democratic district by five votes and was re-elected without opposition in November 2024. In 2026, she will face 27-year-old Broward County activist Elijah Manley in the Democratic primary for the District 20 seat.
On Thursday morning, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that the indicted Democratic congresswoman would be stepping aside from her leadership position on a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee “while the matter is ongoing.” (Democratic Caucus rules require indicted lawmakers to relinquish committee leadership slots.)
“Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has proudly represented the people of Palm Beach and Broward Counties since 2022,” Jeffries spokesperson Christie Stephenson said in a statement to Politico. “Consistent with the United States Constitution, she is entitled to her day in court and the presumption of innocence.”
Cherfilus-McCormick’s attorneys, David Markus, Margot Moss, and Melissa Madrigal, tell New Times that the congresswoman is a “committed public servant, who is dedicated to her constituents.”
“We will fight to clear her good name,” they said in an emailed statement.
In March 2021, Florida’s Division of Emergency Management hired Cherfilus-McCormick’s Miramar-based Trinity Health Care Services to register people for COVID-19 vaccines. That spring, Trinity sent the state an invoice of $50,578.50.
But while the state intended to pay Trinity that amount, a decimal error led to a $5,057,850 payment — an overpayment of five million dollars, according to a January 2025 lawsuit.
The suit claimed that the $5 million was just one of several overpayments, totaling more than $5.7 million, and that Trinity ultimately refused to return the money.
As previously reported by New Times, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that after the state signed the contract with Trinity and the overpayment occurred, Cherfilus-McCormick — Trinity’s CEO at the time — loaned her campaign a staggering $6.2 million, which she then used to win a 2022 congressional race against Republican Drew-Montez Clark.
FEC records show the Democrat loaned herself millions of dollars for the 2022 congressional campaign across more than 100 payments during the 2021-2022 campaign cycle, with payments ranging from $7, given to her campaign on June 1, 2021, to $2 million, which she paid the campaign weeks later on June 24, 2021.
Cherfilus-McCormick reportedly stepped down as CEO of Trinity in 2021 when she ran for Congress.
The lawsuit against Trinity came on the heels of an unrelated ethics report that concluded Cherfilus-McCormick may have violated U.S. House rules with her campaign activities.
The report, released on January 2, found that Cherfilus-McCormick’s income swelled by more than $6 million between 2020 and 2021, partly thanks to nearly $5.75 million in what she reported as “consulting fees and profit-sharing fees received for work for Trinity Health Care Services.”
“If Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign committee failed to report or misrepresented information in FEC filings, Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” the report reads.
In September, Cherfilus-McCormick filed a $1 million defamation lawsuit against Manley, accusing her opponent of engaging “in a pattern of making false and defamatory statements” in his campaign videos and published columns in the Sun Sentinel. “Through campaign videos on Instagram and published columns, [Manley] has deliberately spread malicious and false statements about [Cherfilus-McCormick], resulting in reputation harm and public discredit,” the complaint states.
In a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter), Manley called on Cherfilus-McCormick to resign, “so that our district can focus on having our needs met without distraction.”
“My opponent, Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick, has just been indicted by the US Department of Justice for a laundry list of fraud charges,” he wrote in another post. “I am Elijah Manley, a 27-year-old educator and the best Democratic candidate to hold this seat in Florida’s 20th congressional district.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated as events warrant.
