A freshman Democratic congresswoman from Florida is at the center of a federal corruption case that prosecutors say involved raiding disaster relief money and quietly routing the cash back into her own rise to power.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus McCormick, who represents Florida’s 20th Congressional District, has been indicted by a federal grand jury along with several co defendants on charges that they stole about 5 million dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds and laundered the money for personal and political gain.
According to the indictment, the scheme grew out of a FEMA funded contract for COVID 19 vaccination staffing awarded to Trinity Health Care Services, a Miramar based company tied to Cherfilus McCormick’s family. In 2021, Trinity received an overpayment of roughly 5 million dollars under the contract. Instead of sending the extra money back, prosecutors say, the defendants treated it as a windfall.
Federal officials allege that Cherfilus McCormick and her co defendants moved the money through a maze of bank accounts and shell entities to disguise where it came from, then used a substantial portion of it to support her 2021 congressional campaign and to cover personal expenses. Some of the cash allegedly flowed into the race through so called straw donors, with friends and relatives making campaign contributions that were secretly reimbursed from the FEMA overpayment.
The Justice Department has charged the congresswoman with theft of government funds, money laundering, and campaign finance crimes tied to those alleged straw donations, along with tax related offenses linked to how the money was reported. If convicted on all counts, she could face decades in prison.
REPORT: Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who is accused of stealing $5M of FEMA funds, allegedly used the money to purchase a $109,000 3.14-carat yellow diamond ring.
Here is where the $5 million went, according to the Miami Herald:
– $2.4 million to… pic.twitter.com/qKROTGRdWm
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 25, 2025
Attorney General Pamela Bondi did not hold back in her public statement announcing the case. “Using disaster relief funds for self enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” she said, adding that “no one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain.” She vowed that prosecutors would follow the facts and “deliver justice.”
Investigators say the FEMA contract was supposed to pay Trinity for providing staff to help run Florida’s COVID vaccination effort at the height of the pandemic. The indictment accuses the company of seizing on a massive overpayment and then engineering ways to keep it, turning emergency money meant for a public health crisis into a private political slush fund.
I will not be intimidated. Our fight continues.
Read the full statement at the link in bio. pic.twitter.com/v3EdXuBnWy
— Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (@CongresswomanSC) November 20, 2025
State officials in Florida had already sued Trinity Health Care Services over what they said were inflated pandemic invoices worth millions. Federal investigators then dug into the FEMA side of the books, eventually bringing in the FBI and IRS criminal agents to track where the money went.
Cherfilus McCormick, who once ran as a reform minded outsider and made headlines for pouring large personal loans into her early campaigns, now finds herself portrayed by prosecutors as the architect of an elaborate plan to turn taxpayer disaster funds into political fuel.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are already seizing on the indictment as proof of Democratic hypocrisy on ethics and corruption. Ethics watchdogs, meanwhile, point to the allegations as a textbook example of why emergency programs need tighter safeguards and more aggressive oversight long after the headlines fade.
