Bizarre GOP carpetbagger claims she's not charged with fraud — court records say otherwise

A Republican congressional candidate in Florida is denying that she carpetbagged from Illinois and that she is under federal indictment for wire fraud — but evidence reviewed by The Bulwark's Andrew Egger, Cathy Young, and Jim Swift suggests otherwise.

"The tale begins in March 2023, when federal prosecutors in Illinois indicted one Te Dora Brown of Palos Park on 13 felonies, accusing her and her husband Christopher Scott of fraudulently obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID relief money by applying for federal loans on behalf of phony employees at companies that turned out not to exist," said the report. Specifically, prosecutors say the two used the money to make "splurge buys at Tiffany, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue, buying Uber Eats, and withdrawing huge sums in ATM cash."

Scott pleaded guilty, but Brown has not, and her trial is set to happen just after the midterm elections.

Then last year, said the report, she launched a campaign for Illinois' 11th District, going by the name Tedora M. Brown and proclaiming she was a “former lifelong Democrat” who was “waking up to what the Democratic Party was doing to her community and her country.” She said of the charges against her, “They came after me because I’m a Republican and I’m an American Black woman.”

She came in fourth place in that primary — and then "one month later, a 'Te Brown' popped up in Florida business records, incorporating a new company: TM Brown Incorporated. Was this the same person? It appears so. The company was registered in the name of Brown’s former campaign treasurer, Dratonyai Ratcliff. The same records named the company president as 'Te Brown,' listing her under a Palos Park, Illinois address." That same person is now running in Florida's 24th District in the Miami area.

Despite all of this evidence, the Te Brown in Florida vehemently denies she is the same person as the Te Brown in Illinois.

"On the phone yesterday, she repeatedly insisted she is not Te Dora Brown or Tedora M. Brown of Illinois," said the report. However, when informed the same treasurer filed paperwork for both campaigns, she replied, “Wait, hold on, is this — are you the police?” and said she needed to leave the call to prepare for “an exclusive interview that I’m doing tomorrow with NBC.”