TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida state agency is suing a company owned by the family of U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, saying the company overcharged the state by nearly $5.8 million for work done during the pandemic and won’t give the money back.
The lawsuit comes at the same time that a congressional ethics investigation concluded the South Florida Democrat may have violated U.S. House rules and federal law with her campaign activities and how she has used her congressional office. The House Ethics Committee hasn’t acted on the report.
The lawsuit was filed Dec. 30 in state court in Tallahassee by the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The agency claims that it made a series of overpayments to Trinity Healthcare Services, based in Miramar, after hiring Trinity in 2021 to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations. The agency says it discovered the problem after a single $5 million overpayment drew attention.
“Trinity took advantage of the state of emergency the entire country was encountering due to the COVID-19 pandemic and knowingly processed an invoice more than 100 times its typical invoice size,” the suit says.
Lawyer Gabriel Imperato, who represents the company, declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale.
Cherfilus-McCormick was the CEO of Trinity at the time. She was elected to Congress in 2022 in the 20th District representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties in a special election after Rep. Alcee Hastings died in 2021. Cherfilus-McCormick won the primary in the heavily Democratic district by five votes. She was reelected without opposition in November.
In a report from the Office of Congressional Ethics released on Jan. 2, the agency found that Cherfilus-McCormick’s income in 2021 was more than $6 million higher than in 2020, driven by nearly $5.75 million in consulting and profit-sharing fees received from Trinity Healthcare Services. The House Ethics Committee hasn’t acted on the report.
During the 2021-2022 campaign cycle, Cherfilus-McCormick reported loaning her campaign millions of dollars.
The ethics report found that there was reason to believe that Cherfilus-McCormick made nearly $270,000 in unreported payments to a Florida state political action committee in 2021 and 2022 for campaign work. The report found that Cherfilus-McCormick may have also improperly accepted in-kind contributions.
The report also found that Mark Goodrich, whom the report described as Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign manager, improperly produced videos and mailers that Cherfilus-McCormick sent out using her congressional office.
Cherfilus-McCormick has said the report doesn’t mean she has done anything wrong.