Te Mayonna Brown is the Republican nominee for Florida’s 24th Congressional District this November after no other GOP candidate filed to run. Andrew Egger of The Bulwark reported that she had already sought a House seat in Illinois earlier in the cycle and that a woman named Te Dora Brown appears in a federal wire fraud indictment there. Egger said he spoke with Brown by phone and that she maintained she was not Tedora M. Brown, the Illinois candidate, and was not the Te Dora Brown listed in the court case. He wrote that she asked if he worked in law enforcement before ending the call. Egger said he then mentioned that identical campaign paperwork had been filed for both races. Brown replied, “Wait, hold on, is this, are you the police?” She said she was busy and had to get ready for an NBC interview the next day. She told him she would call back at 6 a.m. the following morning. Egger wrote that she did not. Paperwork, websites, and social media tied the two campaigns together Federal prosecutors in Illinois charged Te Dora Brown of Palos Park in March 2023 with 13 felonies, according to public court filings. They accused Brown and her husband, Christopher Scott, of securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-era loans by naming fake workers at companies that did not exist. This Republican candidate’s resume is crazy–and she’s trying to cover it up.@EggerDC investigates how Te, or Tedora Brown, managed to run for public office in Florida. pic.twitter.com/WGMkSjbhsB— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) September 1, 2026 The filings alleged the money went to shopping at Tiffany, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue, to Uber Eats orders, and to large cash withdrawals from ATMs. Egger reported that Scott entered a guilty plea and that Brown is contesting the case. The court schedule he cited sets her trial for a date only weeks after Election Day. On the Illinois campaign trail in the 11th District, she ran as Tedora M. Brown and said she had spent most of her life as a Democrat. She told a local newspaper Shaw Local, “They came after me because I’m a Republican and I’m an American Black woman. If I was guilty, why would I run for Congress? Why would I put myself in the limelight? It just doesn’t make any sense.” She placed fourth on March 17 with 5.7 percent of the vote. Florida records from about a month later show the creation of TM Brown Incorporated. Dratonyai Ratcliff, who had been treasurer of the Illinois campaign, submitted that filing. The paperwork named Te Brown as president and listed a Palos Park, Illinois, address. Te Brown is the GOP nominee for House in FL-24. Te Brown is also a criminal defendant in a federal wire-fraud case going to trial this year. Brown the candidate insists to me that she is not Brown the accused fraudster. She's lying.A wild one today:https://t.co/P3qnELbbMQ— Andrew Egger (@EggerDC) September 1, 2026 Ratcliff later submitted FEC documents for a congressional campaign in Florida’s 24th District. Those papers used the same Aventura address as the new company. With no Republican opponent on the ballot, Brown moved on to the general election against Democrat Oliver Gilbert. Her old Illinois campaign site, still available in archived form, gave her name as Te Dora Mayonna Brown. The Florida campaign site now lists Te Mayonna Brown. Campaign updates have also appeared on an X account with the handle @TeamLSAcademy. Egger wrote that the handle appears connected to Little Shepherd’s Academy, a business named in the Illinois indictment. The same X account was linked to the Instagram page @missbrownalways. That profile’s bio at one point called Brown president of Scottland Construction and Women in Construction of Illinois, companies also listed in her Illinois campaign materials. Those names came off the bio after Egger said he asked about them. He reported that the Instagram photo matches one that had been used on the Illinois site and closely resembles a portrait on the Florida site. The scrutiny of Brown’s background and claims is part of a broader pattern of campaign controversies, such as when a Tennessee gubernatorial candidate made inflammatory religious claims. Karin Dennis, Brown’s campaign manager, phoned Egger shortly before the article went out, he said. Dennis said the woman running in Florida and the woman who ran in Illinois are the same person. She also said the criminal charges had been dropped. Egger replied that online court records still showed no dismissal. Dennis said the update should appear soon. The campaign’s most recent finance report listed a little more than $7,000 in donations. Brown had put about $306,000 of her own money into the race as a loan. Egger wrote that she has done little public campaigning or media work in the district. The campaign’s assertion that a legal matter would soon be resolved is a familiar type of denial, such as when Mike Lindell long denied Trump’s loss in 2020 before rejecting his own loss in a GOP gubernatorial primary.