Florida has filed a lawsuit against Trinity Health Care Services, alleging the company knowingly accepted over $5 million in accidental overpayments and used the funds, in part, to support a congressional campaign.
The lawsuit, filed in Leon Circuit Civil Court, accuses Trinity of exploiting emergency conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic to retain funds far exceeding the intended payment.
In June 2021, the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) contracted Trinity to assist with COVID-19 vaccination registration.
The agency mistakenly transferred $5,057,850.00 instead of the intended $50,578.50, a hundredfold overpayment. Despite the apparent error, Trinity did not return the funds. Additional overpayments during the period brought the total amount to over $5.7 million, according to state records.
The situation resurfaced in 2024 when FDEM formally demanded repayment. The lawsuit alleges that Trinity, under the leadership of then-CEO Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, knowingly processed the inflated payments and failed to return them. The state claims this occurred during a national state of emergency, exacerbating the issue.
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who served as Trinity’s CEO at the time, later ran for and won a seat in Congress. Florida officials now allege that a portion of the overpaid funds was used to finance her 2021 congressional campaign.
The Office of Congressional Ethics has also released a report detailing allegations of campaign finance violations against Cherfilus-McCormick. The report claims her campaign committee accepted unreported contributions exceeding legal limits and failed to disclose transactions between the campaign committee’s and her business’s bank accounts.
While Cherfilus-McCormick currently faces unrelated ethics complaints, the lawsuit adds further scrutiny to her tenure at Trinity. Florida’s legal filing asserts that Trinity exploited the emergency conditions of the pandemic to retain funds it was not entitled to.
Trinity’s current CEO, Edwin Cherfilus, has declined to comment on the lawsuit or the allegations against the company.
Florida is seeking full repayment of the overpaid funds as the case unfolds. Meanwhile, Cherfilus-McCormick’s political career faces heightened scrutiny over fresh legal and ethical allegations.
