In poker, it’s called buying the pot. In politics, it’s what Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick did four years ago, by loaning herself a staggering $6.2 million in her first race for Congress.
Now it’s the basis of a federal criminal indictment charging the congressman and her brother with stealing much of that from COVID-19 vaccination money.
She denies wrongdoing. She is entitled, like any defendant, to be presumed innocent. The prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
But this didn’t come out of the blue, and it reflects poorly on her judgment and her lack of candor with voters.
A five-vote victory
Her astounding $6.2 million ante didn’t clear the field as she might have hoped. Ten other Democrats stayed in the race to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings.
She won the primary by five votes over former Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness in November 2021, then cruised to victory in Florida’s bluest district with 79%. She beat Holness again in the next election, and was the only member of Congress in the state to win unopposed in 2024.
Cherfilus-McCormick never fully explained how she acquired the millions that catapulted her to Congress.
It’s why this editorial board declined to endorse her, or anyone, in the 2021 primary election.
When she belatedly filed a required report after the primary, it showed $5.7 million in compensation and profit-sharing from Trinity Healthcare Services, a family-owned company in Miramar.
A massive overpayment
That raised new questions that went unanswered until last December, when the state Division of Emergency Management (DEM) said in a lawsuit that it overpaid Trinity by some $5.7 million for COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic, and the company refused to return the money.
Notably, the congresswoman wasn’t a defendant. The suit blamed overpayments on “clerical” errors by DEM’s staff rather than any deliberate overbilling by Trinity.
The indictment confirms that. DEM, which is under Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not explain why it took more than three years to realize its errors. The lawsuit was settled with a repayment plan.
If the overpayment was the prime source of her campaign loan but was the state’s mistake and not Trinity’s, prosecutors may have trouble proving a conspiracy.
On the other hand, someone who comes by money that she ought to know wasn’t rightfully earned generally has a legal obligation to return it. If you see a bag of money bearing a bank’s name fall out of an armored truck, it is not a game of finders-keepers.
It strains belief that Cherfilus-McCormick could take nearly $6 million from a relatively small family business and not realize that it should be repaid. The indictment also alleges that straw-money contributions to her campaign were laundered through people she paid from the COVID-19 project.
As the federal case proceeds, the House Ethics Committee also has an ongoing investigation that relates at least partly to her campaign finances.
Voters deserve better
No matter how a trial ends, she has a huge political problem. The least voters in District 20 in Broward and Palm Beach counties deserve is an unindicted representative.
If Cherfilus-McCormick runs for re-election, DeSantis is poised to redraw the district to help Republicans. That won’t be easy in one of the bluest places in Florida.
Holness is running again, as is Democrat Elijah Manley. But the Democrats need a much stronger field.
Party leaders must coalesce around a new candidate and convince Cherfilus-McCormick that she has no chance of winning when she’s accused of stealing federal money to bankroll her political ambitions. Politically, she appears finished.
Meanwhile, Republicans should tread carefully about trying to exploit the Cherfilus-McCormick mess. The GOP has big problems of its own in Florida.
Rep. Cory Mills, an Orlando-area Republican, is the target of a House Ethics Committee investigation after a judge put a restraining order on him in at the request of a former girlfriend.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace failed to censure Mills and remove him from two committees over alleged conflicts of interest.
Domestic misconduct is one of several issues the ethics committee said it will investigate. Others include potential violations of campaign laws, House disclosure rules and misuse of congressional resources.
In Tallahassee, a state grand jury has been investigating how the DeSantis administration diverted $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overpayment settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation, the governor’s wife’s pet charity.
The foundation then shared it with two political committees that spent an equivalent amount to help DeSantis defeat the 2024 recreational marijuana amendment.
Medicaid money consists of federal and state funds. If the $67 million was to repay what a provider, Centene Corp., had overbilled, every penny belonged back in the Medicaid account.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who personally announced the indictment of Cherfilus-McCormick, has been curiously incurious about the Hope Florida scandal.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board includes Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
