EXCLUSIVE — A conservative watchdog on Thursday submitted a referral to the Department of Justice regarding Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), who allegedly retained a $5.8 million overpayment from the state of Florida and used the funds to finance her first successful congressional campaign.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed the inquiry urging the DOJ’s Criminal Division to investigate Cherfilus-McCormick.

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The congresswoman remains “the subject of numerous ethics and legal investigations by the Office of Congressional Ethics and House Ethics Committee, which found evidence that she accepted campaign contributions linked to an official action, accepted illegal in-kind campaign contributions, dispensed special favors to friends, misrepresented the source of campaign contributions, and requested community project funding to be directed to a for-profit entity,” FACT’s letter states.

“Not only are these serious ethics concerns, but, if true, are likely serious criminal violations,” it continues.

FACT previously asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to look into the lawmaker and the related allegations. In May, the office acted on the request by recommending that the bipartisan House Ethics Committee open an investigation after finding “probable cause” that she broke ethics and campaign finance laws. The probe has been ongoing since 2023.

Trinity Health Care Services, which Cherfilus-McCormick led prior to her time in Congress, “knowingly processed an invoice more than 100 times its typical invoice size,” the Florida Division of Emergency Management alleged in a lawsuit filed late last year. The state agency hired the healthcare company to help with COVID-19 vaccine registrations in 2021.

The initial invoice allegedly resulted in Trinity mistakenly receiving a payment worth $5,057,850 instead of $50,578.50. Additional clerical errors brought the total amount to $5.8 million. The money wasn’t returned to the state of Florida, suggesting she may have pocketed it for her own political gain.

Notably, Cherfilus-McCormick’s income allegedly increased by more than $6 million around the time that the Florida agency made the overpayment. She then loaned millions of dollars to her largely self-funded campaign during the 2022 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records.

“Despite the increase in income, her assets did not notably increase as shown on her congressional financial disclosure reports,” the letter reads. “The facts, timeline, and dollar amounts are plainly incriminating.”

In January 2022, Cherfilus-McCormick won the special general election for former Rep. Alcee Hastings’s vacant seat following his death the previous year. She was reelected twice during the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.

Before running for Congress, Cherfilus-McCormick resigned as the chief executive of Trinity. The company is based in Miramar, Florida.

The lawsuit reached a resolution in April when the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Trinity agreed on a settlement. It stipulated that the company would repay more than $5.6 million to the state over the next 15 years.

“Not only does this show the $5 million was such a significant amount for the company that it needed 15 years of quarterly payments to obtain and return the funds, but also that Trinity did not keep the $5 million overpayment,” FACT says.

“Although the evidence above suggests what happened to the $5 million, the Justice Department is in a unique position to discover the truth of the matter,” the group added.

Thursday’s referral adds to the list of troubles that the House Democrat is already facing over her numerous ethics violations.

For instance, a former consulting company that she owned reportedly sent more than 30 payments totaling $250,000 to a Florida political action committee during the 2021-2022 special election cycle. She also may have accepted and failed to report in-kind contributions exceeding FEC contribution limits.

Cherfilus-McCormick insists no such violation has occurred without explicitly denying the allegations.

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“The facts of this case have only become more damning since filing our original complaint in March. A sitting Member of Congress is now tied not just to a series of ethics violations, but also to potentially serious criminal conduct involving millions in taxpayer dollars,” Kendra Arnold, executive director of FACT, told the Washington Examiner.

“Historically the Ethics Committee had not been timely nor reliable in assuring justice when it involves their own Members,” she said. “Both the stakes and the evidence involved here fully merit involvement by the highest investigative and enforcement body in our government. It is for this reason the Department of Justice should fully investigate this matter to ensure accountability and uphold public trust in our democratic institutions.”