A federal grand jury charged U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., with stealing $5 million in Covid-19 disaster funds — a chunk of which was then illegally contributed to her 2021 congressional campaign, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Cherfilus-McCormick faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted on the charges, the DOJ said in a press release. Actual sentences are often significantly lower than the maximums due to judges’ discretion and federal sentencing guidelines.
The congresswoman and her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, tried to launder the money through multiple accounts to disguise its source, the DOJ said, citing the indictment returned in Miami.
The siblings obtained the money in July 2021, after the family health-care company where they worked received a $5 million overpayment from FEMA, which funded the company’s Covid vaccination staffing contract, according to the DOJ.
Cherfilus-McCormick and another defendant, Nadege Leblanc, are also accused of orchestrating a “straw donor” scheme in which money from the FEMA contract was sent to friends and relatives, who then donated it back to her campaign for Congress.
