BS BULLETIN:
- Florida Republican congressional candidate Te Mayonna Brown denies she is the Illinois woman awaiting trial on 13 federal wire-fraud charges.
- Public campaign records, archived websites and a shared campaign operative reportedly connect Brown to the Illinois candidate named in the indictment.
- Brown’s current campaign manager confirmed to The Bulwark that the two candidates are the same person, but claimed the charges had been dropped.
A Republican congressional candidate in Florida is denying that she is an Illinois politician facing 13 federal wire-fraud charges — despite a collection of campaign records and even her own campaign manager reportedly saying otherwise.
Te Mayonna Brown is the Republican nominee for Florida’s heavily Democratic 24th Congressional District. Florida election records list Brown as a qualified candidate who filed for the seat in May and paid the required qualifying fee. But according to reporting by The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger, Brown previously ran for Congress in Illinois under the name Tedora M. Brown.
A woman named Te Dora Brown was federally indicted in 2023 on 13 counts of wire fraud for allegedly participating in a scheme to obtain COVID-relief money through fraudulent loan applications. Federal prosecutors accused Brown and a co-defendant of seeking money for businesses that allegedly had no employees, payroll or ongoing operations. The indictment alleges the pair received at least $742,000 in Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Paycheck Protection Program funds and intended to use the money for their personal benefit.
The strange part began when Egger contacted the Florida candidate and asked whether she was the same person. Brown reportedly insisted she was not Te Dora Brown, the woman named in the federal indictment, or Tedora M. Brown, the former Illinois candidate. According to Egger, Brown asked whether he was a law-enforcement officer before ending the call.
“When I pointed out that the same Dratonyai Ratcliff had filed the paperwork for both of Te Brown’s campaigns, she suddenly swerved: ‘Wait, hold on, is this — are you the police?’” Egger wrote.
Archived campaign materials reportedly identified Brown by the full name Te Dora Mayonna Brown, while her current Florida campaign uses Te Mayonna Brown. Brown’s present campaign manager, Karin Dennis, then reportedly confirmed to Egger that the Florida and Illinois candidates were the same woman. Dennis claimed the federal charges had been dropped. Egger reported that he could find no court record supporting that assertion and that Brown’s trial was scheduled to begin shortly after Election Day.
The federal indictment also remains publicly available through the Justice Department.
Brown previously denied the fraud allegations while campaigning in Illinois and portrayed the prosecution as politically motivated. “They came after me because I’m a Republican and I’m an American Black woman,” she told an Illinois reporter. “If I was guilty, why would I run for Congress? Why would I put myself in the limelight?”
That question may now have a Florida sequel.
MY QUICK TAKE
There are difficult questions in politics, and then there is: “Are you the same congressional candidate currently awaiting trial on 13 federal fraud charges?”
When the available campaign records say yes and your own campaign manager reportedly says yes, “Are you the police?” probably isn’t the answer that clears everything up.
DBS WIRE SOURCES
- ‘Florida woman’ crowned the most ‘absurd’ midterm candidate amid firestorm of scandals — Mediaite
- We found her: The most absurd general-election candidate in America — The Bulwark
- Two suburban Chicago residents charged with $742,000 COVID-relief fraud — Department of Justice
- Florida candidate record for Te Mayonna Brown — Florida Division of Elections
- Pair indicted in alleged COVID-relief fraud scheme — CBS News Chicago
