Congress targets North Miami Beach mayor over Cherfilus-McCormick investigation

The U.S. House Ethics Committee is recommending that North Miami Beach Mayor Michael Joseph be held in criminal contempt of Congress — and wants those charges referred to the Department of Justice — for not helping with its investigation into former Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

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The Ethics Committee is asking for a full House vote on whether Joseph should be “found to be in contempt of Congress for his failure to comply” with subpoenas for documents and testimony about Cherfilus-McCormick.

The House is currently in recess and returns in mid-July, when Speaker Mike Johnson could put the matter up for a vote. If the House approves the committee’s recommendation, and the Department of Justice decides to pursue charges, Joseph could face a fine of up to $100,000 and prison time for up to a year.

Joseph did not respond to a request for comment from the Miami Herald about the committee’s recommendation.

He was prominently featured in a House Ethics Committee report earlier this year accusing Cherfilus-McCormick of impermissibly funnelling corporate contributions from a politically connected oil company called Petrogaz-Haiti into her campaign.

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee charges Cherfilus-McCormick with 25 counts of misconduct

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According to that report, Joseph arranged a meet-and-greet between Cherfilus McCormick and the company’s owner. Four days later, Petrogaz-Haiti or its owner — the report is unclear — wrote the first in a string of checks that totaled $810,000 to a political organization chaired by Joseph.

The organization turned around and gave most of those funds to a separate, now-defunct group that helped fund the congresswoman’s 2022 campaign without disclosing its spending, according to House investigators.

“She deserves her day in court,” Joseph said in a statement to the Herald in February about that report. “I believe she is being unfairly targeted because one seat makes a difference for which political party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.”

A spokesperson for Cherfilus-McCormick — who resigned from her seat but is running for reelection in Florida’s 20th District — declined to comment.

Criminal charges from contempt of Congress referrals are rare. The House held 10 people in criminal contempt of Congress between 2008 and 2023, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The Department of Justice indicted just two of those people, including Steve Bannon in 2022, who was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500.

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