The Department of Homeland Security has suspended former Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, her relatives, close associates, and multiple businesses from receiving any future federal funds, a sweeping financial blacklist tied to her indictment for allegedly stealing $5.7 million in taxpayer money meant for COVID-19 relief.
The action targets not just the 47-year-old former Florida congresswoman but her brother Edwin Cherfilus, her sister Marjorie Cherfilus, her parents Gabriel and Marie Smith, her former congressional chief of staff Nadege Leblanc, and her tax preparer David Spencer. Several LLCs connected to the group, including Marjorie Cherfilus's MC Nursing Journey Consulting Firm, Leblanc's Finance & Fitness Consulting, and Spencer's tax and consulting company, will also be debarred from federal funding, the New York Post first reported.
DHS General Counsel James Percival told the Post that Cherfilus-McCormick "abused Americans' trust in the most egregious way."
"She manipulated the COVID-19 crisis to funnel over $5 million dollars of FEMA relief funds to her and her family members. This is outright fraud. That's exactly what a federal grand jury and the US House of Representatives found."
Percival added that he was "proud that my office is taking the first step to ensure she is held accountable and American taxpayers' money is protected from further misuse." A DHS representative indicated the funding suspension was consistent with actions already taken by the Trump administration's fraud task force, chaired by Vice President JD Vance.
The alleged fraud traces back to FEMA disaster relief funding made available through Florida's Public Assistance program as part of a COVID vaccination effort. Cherfilus-McCormick's family firm, Trinity Healthcare Service, contracted to participate in that effort.
Florida's Division of Emergency Management later sued Trinity, alleging the firm overcharged the state by more than $5.7 million and refused to return the funds. On December 30, 2024, Trinity agreed in a settlement to repay more than $5.6 million to the state over the next 15 years.
But the settlement was just the civil side of the story. A Miami federal grand jury indicted Cherfilus-McCormick last November, charging that she and her brother Edwin funneled $5 million through multiple accounts to conceal its source. Prosecutors alleged that most of the stolen money went to fund her 2021 House campaign for Florida's 20th District.
A January House ethics report determined that the money flowed to a consulting firm Cherfilus-McCormick "wholly owned" between March 2021 and October 2022, when it was voluntarily dissolved. Those funds were then distributed to Cherfilus-McCormick, her family members, and associated LLCs, with at least $3.6 million eventually making its way into her campaign.
That figure bears repeating. Federal investigators and House ethics investigators say at least $3.6 million in disaster relief money, funds Congress appropriated to help Americans survive a pandemic, ended up financing a congressional campaign.
The alleged fraud did not operate in a vacuum. Prosecutors claimed Nadege Leblanc, Cherfilus-McCormick's former congressional chief of staff, assisted with the scheme through "straw donor contributions" made in the names of her friends and relatives. Leblanc faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
David Spencer, described as Cherfilus-McCormick's tax preparer, allegedly filed a tax return on her behalf that falsely claimed political spending or personal expenses as business deductions and inflated purported charitable donations. Spencer faces up to 33 years if convicted. Edwin Cherfilus faces up to 35 years.
Cherfilus-McCormick herself faces the steepest potential consequence: up to 53 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Her trial is scheduled for February 2027.
The DHS suspension follows a rapid unraveling of Cherfilus-McCormick's political career. An adjudicatory subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee voted on March 27, after a public hearing on Capitol Hill, to find her "guilty" of at least 25 ethics violations.
The full House Ethics Committee was preparing to hold a vote to censure or possibly expel her from office. Speaker Johnson backed the effort to remove her after the ethics panel's findings became public, and the votes appeared to be there.
On April 21, minutes before that vote was set to occur, Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress. The timing spoke for itself. She walked out the door just ahead of a likely expulsion, a move that avoided the formal stigma of being removed by her colleagues but fooled no one about the circumstances.
Her resignation came as Republicans closed in on the expulsion vote, a process that had been building for months. Before that final moment, she had refused to step down even as the evidence mounted and the procedural walls closed in.
In the weeks before her departure, Cherfilus-McCormick dug in and resisted calls to resign, even as the expulsion vote approached and the ethics findings grew more damning.
What makes the DHS action notable beyond its political context is its breadth. This is not a narrow suspension of one former officeholder. It reaches across an entire network, siblings, parents, a chief of staff, a tax preparer, and the shell companies that allegedly moved the money.
The debarment of multiple LLCs is designed to prevent the same individuals from reconstituting under new business names and accessing federal dollars again. It is the kind of structural step that taxpayer advocates have long demanded when fraud networks, not just individual bad actors, are identified.
Cherfilus-McCormick did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Post. Whether she or her legal team will challenge the suspension remains an open question.
Remarkably, even after everything, the indictment, the ethics findings, the forced resignation, Cherfilus-McCormick had filed for re-election just one week before stepping down. That filing tells you something about how seriously she took the process, or how confident she was that the system would let her keep going.
The criminal case moves forward toward a February 2027 trial date. The potential prison terms are severe: 53 years for Cherfilus-McCormick, 35 for her brother, 33 for her tax preparer, 10 for her former chief of staff. Those are maximum sentences, but they signal the gravity of the charges.
The DHS suspension, meanwhile, sends a message that goes beyond the courtroom. Federal agencies can and will cut off individuals and their networks from taxpayer money when the evidence of fraud is strong enough, and they will do it before a conviction, based on the indictment and the institutional findings.
For the taxpayers of Florida and the nation, the damage is already done. More than $5 million in pandemic relief funds, money that was supposed to help communities survive a public health crisis, allegedly ended up in campaign accounts, family bank accounts, and the coffers of shell consulting firms. The settlement with Trinity Healthcare calls for repayment over 15 years. That is a long time to wait for money that should never have left the public treasury.
When a sitting member of Congress allegedly turns disaster relief into a personal campaign fund, the system is supposed to respond. In this case, a grand jury indicted, a House ethics panel found guilt on at least 25 counts, Republicans gathered the votes for expulsion, and DHS shut the financial door. Every one of those steps came from a different institution, and every one pointed in the same direction.
The system worked, eventually. The question taxpayers are entitled to ask is why it took this long.
