Gerrard Kaonga
The state of Florida decided to take legal action after mistakenly sending a healthcare company $5 million instead of $50,000.
Back in 2021, when the US was still trying to bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic, Florida's Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) contracted Trinity Health Care Services in order to assist in registering residents for vaccinations.
The agency intended to pay an invoice of $50,578.50 in June of that year but erroneously transferred $5,057,850.00 instead.
This is understandably quite the overpay and a significant blunder.
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Despite this clear error, the funds were not returned and similar overpayments - totaling more than $5.7 million, according to state records - occurred during that period.
By 2024, Florida noticed the money still hadn’t been returned and formally demanded repayment.
The lawsuit, filed recently in Leon Circuit Civil Court, notes a letter, dated June 13, 2024, demanding a repayment.
In the letter, Stephanie Houp, FDEM's deputy executive director and general counsel, said: "The Florida Divison of Emergency Management’s (FDEM) Bureau of Financial Management has done a reconciliation and identified multiple invoices for Trinity Healthcare Services which were overpaid.
"The overpayments related to services rendered during the State’s response to COVID-19 beginning in 2020. The Total amount of overpayment is $5,778,316.45.
"To date Trinity has not returned the overpaid fund to FDEM. Attached please find listings of all invoices and amounts overpaid to Trinty.
"Part of the responsibilities of doing business with the State of Florida is the requirement to return any monies received in error.”
According to the lawsuit, Trinity is accused of knowingly accepting the inflated payments during the pandemic when the state was operating under emergency conditions.
To make the situation even more complicated, the healthcare company's CEO at the time, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, is allegedly also tied to the lawsuit.
Cherfilus-McCormick ran for and won a seat in Congress and now faces accusations that a portion of the money mistakenly sent was used to fund her 2021 congressional campaign.
According to the lawsuit, the state is arguing that Trinity, as a contractor, ‘was required to return any overpayments of invoices for work not actually performed and money not actually owed’.
They are suing for damages, interest, attorneys' fees, costs and other relief, according to the complaint.
The current CEO of Trinity, Edwin Cherfilus, has declined to comment on the lawsuit, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.
UNILAD has contacted Trinity Health Care Services and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick for comment.