Fort Lauderdale—Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has finally addressed the fraud allegations she has been indicted on during a Urban League of Broward County candidate forum.
The forum was held to showcase congressional candidates running in Florida’s 20nd Congressional District.
The moderator of the forum specifically asked Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick about the fraud allegations that loomed over her and her re-election campaign.
Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick, who resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives after being found guilty on 25 House Ethics violations, appeared eager to address the allegations, referring to the matter as a simple “mistake” and questioned how this “mistake” turned into a criminal matter.
“The truth is, I left the organization before there was any mistake and everybody wonders, and I wonder too, how did a mistake, a mistake that the state admitted, turn into any kind of criminality. The state has said they didn't find anything,” Cherfilus-McCormick said.
Cherfilus-McCormick continued, saying that the state found the matter “was actually a contractual issue.”
The former congresswomen then went onto assert that the probe or investigation launched by the federal government “ws actually politically motivated.”
“So, for them to start a probe even though this mistake happened with hundreds of people in the state, made me think that this was actually politically motivated,” she added.
In addition to that, we also looked at what they were actually looking.
The truth is at the time of this mistake, the contract was for $21 million.
They only paid $14 million, and then they came back four years later to say that there was a mistake.
In addition to that the time of the mistake, I already left to start campaigning.
They're claiming this mistake was done in July. I went left to campaign, if you guys remember in 2021, in May.”
Cherfilus-McCormick is in a contentious Democratic primary race between former County Commissioner Dale Holness, Activist Elijah Manley, Luther Campbell, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
