DOJ Charges House Democrat for Allegedly Stealing $5 Million in FEMA Funds
“This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment — and I am innocent. The timing alone is curious and clearly meant to distract from far more pressing national issues.”
Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL) and several co-defendants were indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, for allegedly stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, 45, both of Miramar, “worked through their family health-care company on a FEMA-funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. In July 2021, the company received an overpayment of $5 million in FEMA funds.
The Washington Post reported that the overpayment was the result of a “clerical error” which the pair chose not to report.
Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother are accused of “laundering the proceeds” and using the money to fund her 2021 congressional campaign. The DOJ announcement says that if convicted, the South Florida congresswoman faces up to 53 years in prison and her brother, up to 35 years.
As per the DOJ news release:
The indictment alleges 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 indictment further alleges that Cherfilus-McCormick and Nadege Leblanc, 46, of Miramar, arranged additional contributions using straw donors, funneling other monies from the FEMA-funded Covid-19 contract to friends and relatives who then donated to the campaign as if using their own money.
The indictment also charges Cherfilus-McCormick and her 2021 tax preparer David K. Spencer, 41, of Davie, with conspiring to file a false federal tax return. According to the indictment, they falsely claimed political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions and inflated charitable contributions in order to reduce her tax obligations.
🚨JUST ANNOUNCED: Dem U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick indicted, charged with stealing $5 million in FEMA funds. No one is above the law. pic.twitter.com/cPpFQQuEwl
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) November 20, 2025
In a statement to Axios, Cherfilus-McCormick said, “This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment — and I am innocent. The timing alone is curious and clearly meant to distract from far more pressing national issues.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement on Cherfilus-McCormick via his spokesperson:
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has proudly represented the people of Palm Beach and Broward Counties since 2022. Consistent with the United States Constitution, she is entitled to her day in court and the presumption of innocence. Pursuant to the Rules of the House Democratic Caucus, Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick will take leave from her position as Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa while this matter is ongoing.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the use of “disaster relief funds for self-enrichment … a particularly selfish, cynical crime.”
“No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain,” she added. “We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida issued a statement which read in part:
Public money belongs to the American people. When FEMA funds are diverted for personal or political gain, it erodes trust and harms us all. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are used as intended and that the public’s trust is safeguarded.
In a striking display of irony, the widely followed X account Libs of TikTok assembled a collection of Cherfilus-McCormick’s past posts in which she proclaimed, with no small measure of sanctimony, that “no one is above the law.” Each instance concerned what she saw as the Democrats’ righteous application of the law against then-candidate Donald Trump.
“No one is above the law” – Rep Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick who was just indicted for allegedly stealing $5 million of FEMA funds and using it to fund her Congressional campaign https://t.co/aoe0eZo3Ax pic.twitter.com/5d2Pa1ACCc
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 19, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Will she don a bonnet and adopt a street thug vocabulary prior to making it all about race as opposed to content of character?
Will there be a chirping smoke detector accompaniment?
No. Her Latino house staff takes care of that for her.
Zzzzinnnnggg!!!!
She actually has already injected race into the conversation!
Victimized by the WHITE MAN! It gets so tiresome (and predictable).
“This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment — and I am innocent”
Missing from this report was the fact that Rep. McCormick insisted that she knew her rights, wasn’t getting out of her car, and demanded to speak to a supervisor.
Also, she does not need to produce ID without first talking to her lawyer and she will destroy everyone’s careers when she sues over this false arrest.
Why is she not holding her phone in the picture? And can she call her mom.
Huh? Where is all this coming from? As far as I know she hasn’t been arrested, just indicted.
She will be. If an indictment has been handed down by a federal grand jury then arrest is guaranteed. They are functionally the same as an indictment will land you in a trial.
“This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment”
You know how we all know it wasn’t?
Because if it was, it would have targeted somebody like Schumer, Pelosi, Hakeem, Swallwell, Tlaib.
Nobody knows who the hell you are, and nobody cares.
True. That’s why I didn’t include her name in the headline.
I haven’t found evidence of this happening. Are you just making a joke out of people that do that type of stuff as YouTube has tons of video’s of that exact thing which always end with the cops breaking the window and dragging the miscreant out of the car to much wailing and screaming cries of “I’m not resisting” and “I didn’t do nothing wrong”
It’s racial humor. Diversity in humor is our strength.
Typical engineer.
Do you think she wants reparations?
Do you think she wants reparations?
Does a boat with one oar go in circles?
You can get so rich in Congress, what a stupid thing to do
But she’s black and female
I will be surprised if anything happens
Well, only if you can manage to STAY in Congress.
“Prosecutors allege that a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds was used as candidate contributions to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign…”
$5 million seems overly ambitious for a first attempt.
I doubt it was her first rodeo. According to reports I’ve read the Congresswoman and her posse seemed pretty familiar with how to launder ill-gotten funds.
Have you been paying attention to Bidenflation?
If USA still had pay toilets, they’d be pushing three figures.
False tax return! Who the hell does she think she is, Hunter Biden?
Hunter couldn’t even be bothered to file false ones.
Yeah. He didn’t even bother with those pesky things relying on “do you know who my father is”
defense:
this is an orchestrated outlandish attempt to frame our client by the white patriarchy who is losing their power to the black matriarchy and are holding out for a racewar
lefty rep:
its not stealing as we owe it to her
state after state has program(s) that expunge the criminal records ,, and its directed for the blm community……millions of criminals have been cleared of their wrongs
while the violent ones have their violent criminal charges watered down to misdemeanors over and over
Cherfilus-McCormick could go on live national TV wearing a white Klan robe and hood, skin a live black baby, cook it and eat it – and she would not lose a single vote at election time.
So what makes anyone think she will pay a political price for theft?
Clerical error huh? I wonder who at FEMA helped her? Also I hope they plan on indicting her friends and family members who made the donations.
I hope her weave falls out.
Waiting for her to say she thought the money was from her Aunt Fema on her Baby Daddy’s side
From other news sites I am getting that a whole lot of people are on the hook for money laundering as well as other things.
Her district will vote in another Democrat/ Culture Marxist to do it all again some other way next time.
They keep electing Ghetto Barbie and Debbie Does Miami Schultz so there is that.
No wonder she’s smiling. All the fraud are belong to the Dems (IYKYK)….
Hopefully there will be state charges as well. The company settled with Florida a few months ago to repay nearly $6 million in state funds. She was living large on stolen funds, and bought an election in the process.
I was wondering how long it would take to get to her. This surfaced months ago but the DOJ was moving slow making sure all the t’s were crossed. I don’t think the “I didn’t do nothing” defense is going to work on this one. I am curious about her “suspicious timing” comment. Does she mean because a Republican is in the WH and a Dem would never do this?
clerical error? 🤣🤣
She is all smiles in that picture because she is getting her reparations from whitey