Nearly three months after her indictment, U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick plans to enter a not guilty plea to federal charges that she conspired to steal $5 million in federal relief funds and steered some of the money to her congressional campaign.
But the congresswoman is not expected to be in court for her scheduled arraignment Tuesday afternoon in Miami. Her new attorney, William Barzee of Barzee Flores of Miami, notified the court in a filing posted late Monday that she would waive her appearance at an arraignment before a federal magistrate.
The congresswoman and Barzee co-signed a request for the waiver on Sunday, court files show. Barzee did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who is out on bond and who has consistently denied the charges against her, appears to have been focused over the last week on advocating for the preservation of Temporary Protection Status for some 350,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States.
On Monday, she announced she had filed several amendments to the Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2026 funding bill. They are designed, she said in a statement, “at protecting vulnerable immigrant communities, preserving critical workforce capacity, and ensuring humane treatment within the immigration system.”
Last Tuesday, the congresswoman appeared with U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a fellow Democrat, at a rally of unionized workers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to help advocate for the preservation of protections for Haitian immigrants in South Florida and elsewhere around the nation.
Last Thursday, an investigative subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee announced it had found “substantial evidence” she had committed ethics violations and criminal misconduct, allegations she denied.
Appearance waiver request
In her waiver request to the court, Cherfilus-McCormick gave no reason for taking a pass on her scheduled Tuesday court appearance.
“I understand that I have been charged by an indictment in this case,” she said in her statement requesting the waiver. “My attorney has provided a copy of the indictment to me, and we reviewed the indictment together. I understand my attorney will enter a plea of not guilty as to the indictment at the arraignment.
“Having discussed the indictment with my attorney, I knowingly waive my appearance at the arraignment on the indictment. I request that the Magistrate Court accept this waiver.”
Change in attorneys
In an email, Miami criminal defense lawyer David O. Markus of Marcus / Moss acknowledged his firm had withdrawn from the case.
“Unfortunately my trial schedule wasn’t compatible with taking on the Congresswoman’s case,” he said. “She is in good hands with Bill Barzee and I wish them both well.”
Since the Justice Department started to investigate Cherfilus-McCormick in 2024, Markus / Moss worked on her behalf after the government filed a search warrant application in Fort Lauderdale federal court.
The firm’s lawyers also stood by the congresswoman’s side after her surrender last November and at subsequent hearings where she was scheduled to be arraigned. But those arraignments were postponed as the firm and the congresswoman sought to make arrangements for permanent legal representation in the case.
Veteran defense lawyer
Barzee is a name partner at the four-lawyer Miami firm of Barzee Flores, which specializes in criminal defense and wrongful death cases, civil litigation and seized assets, according to the firm website.
A Miami native, he holds a law degree from the University of Miami. Barzee has worked for both the State and Federal Public Defenders “handling thousands of cases and hundreds of trials,” the website says.
In private practice, the site says, “he has represented individuals accused of such crimes as defrauding the United States of millions of dollars, importing tens of thousands of kilos of cocaine into the United States and arranging for millions of dollars of arms shipments to Iran in violation of a federal arms embargo.”
Barzee is a member of The Florida Bar, the Southern District of Florida, the Middle District of Florida and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Late April trial scheduled
Barring a change of plea or a postponement of the current April 20 trial date, the congresswoman and her defense team have less than three months to prepare for trial. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles has been assigned to preside over the case. against Cherfilus-McCormick and her three co-defendants, including her brother, Edwin.
After a federal grand jury handed up the indictment against her last Nov. 19, the congresswoman called it “unjust” and a “sham.”
She faces 15 counts that accuse her of retaining Federal Emergency Management Agency funds overpaid to her family’s health care company, Trinity Healthcare Services, which has offices in Miramar and Delray Beach. At the time, she was serving as the company’s CEO and had not been elected to Congress.
Prosecutors claim she and Edwin Cherfilus, who is represented in the case by the federal Office of the Public Defender, received the funds in 2021 while their company was working on a FEMA-funded staffing contract for COVID vaccinations. But the overpayment was not returned, the government alleges.
Florida’s emergency management division sued Trinity over the money in 2024, but the two sides reached a repayment agreement through mediation. The Justice Department started its own investigation in July of the same year.
Besides Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother Edwin, Nadege Leblanc, a staffer for the congresswoman, is a defendant in the case, as is David Spencer, who prepared the congresswoman’s tax return for 2021.
LeBlanc pleaded not guilty in December to charges alleging she arranged additional contributions using straw donors and sent the FEMA funds to friends and relatives. Prosecutors allege the cash was donated to the congresswoman’s campaign as if it were their own money.
Spencer is charged with conspiring to file a false federal tax return and has also entered a not guilty plea.