The state of Florida accidentally overpaid a healthcare company to the tune of more than $5.2 million, and the CEO then loaned herself all of that and then some, according to a news report.
Tallahassee Democrat reports that the mistake was made after Florida's Division of Emergency Management made a deal with South Florida's Trinity Health Care Services to register people for COVID-19 vaccinations. FDEM was supposed to pay Trinity an invoice amount of $50,578.50, records show.
"An error in reading a decimal point can lead to a costly mistake. Just ask the state of Florida," according to the Tallahassee report, which notes that the state "accidentally paid $5,057,850.00 to Trinity, an overage of five million bucks."
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The story cites a recent lawsuit, which states, "Trinity took advantage of the state of emergency the entire country was encountering due to the COVID-19 pandemic and knowingly processed an invoice more than 100 times its typical invoice size."
The report goes on to allege that the CEO was a current member of Congress.
"At the time the contract was signed, the CEO was Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, now a member of Congress and the subject of an unrelated House ethics complaint. Edwin Cherfilus, the current CEO for Trinity, declined to comment on the lawsuit, and a request for comment from FDEM was pending as of Tuesday afternoon," according to the report.
There are further allegations that the then-CEO then used a portion of those funds for her congressional run.
Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections, reacted to the news.
"Holy cow! Florida says it accidentally paid a healthcare company $5.7 million instead of $50k," he wrote on Thursday. "That company's CEO, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, then loaned herself $6.2 million to win a congressional race."
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