WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., is suing her primary opponent, Elijah Manley, in Broward County court over libel and cyberstalking allegations.
She's asking the court for damages worth more than $1 million and an order from the judge to stop her primary opponent from attacking her publicly.
WATCH: Elijah Manley says lawsuit sends 'chilling message' about free speech
The congresswoman's lawsuit claims Manley's statements and advertisements about her company wrongly accepting millions in COVID-19 pandemic funds are "damaging her reputation and inflicting great emotional harm."
The dispute centers around a health care company, Trinity Health Care Services, that Cherfilus-McCormick owned before she became a congresswoman. According to state records, the company received a contract during the COVID-19 pandemic to perform vaccination registration at churches, along with other locations, and also went door-to-door.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) later sued the company after it claimed the state agency committed a clerical error resulting in overpayments worth $5.7 million then the company refused to pay back the state. WPTV reporter Ethan Stein obtained documents in July showing the company had settled the lawsuit to pay back the state on an installment plan over the next 19 years.
According to FDEM records, the company will have to pay around $350,000 each year to the department over the time period, with the first two payments worth $50,000. According to the settlement, neither party will admit wrongdoing or liability and each party will pay their own attorneys.
The congresswoman has declined all interview requests about the dispute with the state multiple times since WPTV published its first story about the dispute in January.
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Our news team has been pushing for answers because a "Findings of Fact and Citation to Law" report from the House of Representatives said Cherfilus-McCormick's salary increased by $6 million from 2020 to 2021. The report was created because Cherfilus-McCormick is under federal ethics investigation over allegations she exceeded the legal limit by spending more than $2,500 of her own money on her campaign.
The report said the congresswoman might have broken House rules and federal law because it alleges a company she owned paid more than $250,000 to a state political action committee called Leadership in Action. Then the group, which was governed by her campaign manager, Mark Goodrich, paid himself for various campaign materials. The report also alleged Goodrich participated in creating official materials while being paid by campaign funds.
Elijah Manley, who is running against Cherfilus-McCormick, said he was surprised to learn that the congresswoman had sued him. He said he was just connecting the dots and amplifying publicly available information reported by various media outlets, including WPTV.
"This is just a very logical look at the situation," said Manley. "And I can easily say, 'Well, I mean she got the overpayment for this amount and it somehow ended up in an account and it somehow ended up in her campaign.' There's no other source that we can see that could be legitimate and her health care business before that wasn’t making millions of dollars. To me, it seems very easy to look at on its face and determine."
He also said he believes the congresswoman is filing a lawsuit against the advertisement to drain his campaign resources while suppressing people's ability to campaign with negative attack ads about the Trinity Health Care dispute.
The lawsuit accuses Manley of creating a false, malicious ad that is intended to harm the plaintiff's reputation. Michael Pizzi, an attorney for the congresswoman, said Manley's advertisements, along with a letter to the editor sent to the Sun Sentinel, were slanderous and created great emotional harm for his client.
"The false statements published by Defendant [Manley] exposed Plaintiff [Cherfilus-McCormick] to distrust, disgrace, hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy by the public," reads the lawsuit. "They were also targeted to and did cause destruction to her as a citizen and public official."
The attorney also asked the judge for an order asking Manley to stop attacking her and destroying her good reputation.
FULL LAWSUIT:
Manley, who said he's hired a legal firm to represent himself in court, said he's frustrated he'll have to spend campaign resources on the lawsuit rather than the election. However, he said he's also concerned about the congresswoman’s attempts to prevent candidates from discussing issues on the campaign trail.
"It's obviously going to cost me a lot of money to defeat this lawsuit," Manley said. "But I think this sends a chilling message to anyone that their free speech, their voice can be silenced because they don't like what they’re saying."
Cherfilus-McCormick has declined WPTV's requests to answer questions about the situation with the overpayment and her health company multiple times. Her office also declined to make her available to talk about the lawsuit. Her family, according to past WPTV reporting, now controls Trinity Health Care Services.
Manley said he believes the voters have the right to know about the issues related to their congressional representative. He said it sends a "bad message" that the congresswoman has stopped answering questions about the overpayment issues.
"An elected official, somebody who is tasked with representing our community, can just ignore the press, can just run away from journalists," Manley said. "It sends a message that she lacks the transparency and the temperament needed to be a member of Congress."
