Missouri: Somali Day Care Owner Sentenced for Ripping Off Taxpayers in Lucrative Fraud Scheme

08/16/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

Thanks to reader Joanne for alerting me to this news from a week ago about the sentencing of a Somali ‘new American’ in a day care fraud scheme that cheated taxpayers out of a half a million dollars.

I’m posting almost the entire Justice Department press release because it is chock full of information about how he operated the scam and how the feds nabbed him.

(Emphasis below is mine!)

KC Day Care Owner Sentenced for $556,000 Fraud Scheme

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The owner of a Kansas City, Missouri, day care center was sentenced in federal court today for his role in a conspiracy to fraudulently receive more than $556,000 in federal benefits.

Sharif Karie, 41, of Olathe, Kan., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to four years and 10 months in federal prison without parole.

On Jan. 11, 2019, Karie was convicted at trial of participating in a conspiracy to steal government property, theft of government property, three counts of aggravated identity theft, three counts of wire fraud, 15 counts of money laundering, and six counts of mail fraud.

Can you believe it! The feds are not making us play the secret decoder ring game and have actually said where the crook is from!

Karie, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, was the owner and CEO of a day care center established under two businesses and two names for the same location, with the same key employees: KARIE Day Care Center, LLC, and Tima Child Care Center, LLC, at 1019 Admiral Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. Tima Child Care Center was established under false pretense with a straw owner, according to court documents, apparently to circumvent the state’s oversight efforts.

Co-defendant Sheri Beamon, 48, of Kansas City, Missouri, was the director of KARIE/Tima Childcare Center. Beamon pleaded guilty on Sept. 10, 2018, to her role in the conspiracy and will be sentenced on Aug. 15, 2019.

The day care centers submitted false childcare claims to the state of Missouri that fraudulently inflated the number of hours and children who actually attended the childcare centers. The conspiracy, which lasted from October 2013 to June 2016, resulted in a loss of $536,833 to the Missouri Department of Health and Social Services.The Child Care and Development Fund provides daycare subsidies for low-income families where the parents are employed or engaged in job training. Providers contract with the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and submit claims electronically.

Additionally, Karie committed fraud by misleading the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) when he understated his income and assets. Karie received Section 8 assistance, which is funded by HUD. The fraud scheme resulted in a loss of more than $40,000 to the Housing Authority.

You will be happy to see this next bit of information:

This case was the result of a nationwide sweep that targeted child care center fraud schemes. The national law enforcement operation in Missouri and six other states was the result of separate, but related, federal investigations into childcare center fraud that resulted in a loss of more than $1 million to the government.

Clever feds! I love this:

Pole cameras, which were installed near the day care center, captured footage of the entrances and exits of the building during two time periods in 2015 and in 2016.

Timesheets and billing records were reviewed and compared to the children seen on the pole cameras being dropped off and picked up from the daycare center during that time. There were significant discrepancies between the timesheets, claims submitted, and the pole camera footage. According to court documents, even the fire evacuation records were falsified indicating a fire drill was performed on a date when pole cameras were capturing footage of the entrance/exit of the day care and the planned evacuation route as provided to the state. The drill never took place.

At no time during its operation, according to court documents, did Karie Day Care Center meet the minimum health and safety standards for operation as established by Missouri statute and agreed to by contract. Tima Child Care Center was conceived as the state was in process of shutting down Karie Day Care Center for failure to comply with standards for health, safety, and record keeping. Had the state known that Karie was actually operating the business, according to court documents, a license would not have been approved.

Parents were being paid to care for their own kids on the taxpayers’ dime:

The state conducted a compliance review of the daycare center’s billing for May 2014 and July 2014. The review found several attendance records missing. The review also identified 14 out of the 15 families with children at the center who had a parent employed there. With only two classrooms, it is improbable that parents were not caring for their own children. One of these parents reported that her job was contingent on having all of her children placed in care at KARIE Day Care Center so her child care would be paid by the state. According to court records, nearly all children enrolled for services were those of employees, in violation of state regulations.This same 2014 audit found several discrepancies on the time sheets submitted to the state.

Subsequent unannounced inspections at KARIE Day Care Center found the facility in violation of state regulations pertaining to child care licensing rules, including health and safety, staff ratios, and the maintaining of attendance records. Each of the inspections resulted in violation findings.

LOL! Just another example of how immigrant (new American!) entrepreneurs benefit the US economy (NOT!).

This is a story worth spreading far and wide!

This post is filed in my ‘Daycare fraud’ category, here.

How Two Massive Fraud Cases Intersected

07/28/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran

Because the cases are instructive and because, yes, I do write from time to time about American frauds and crooks not just the ‘New American’ variety, here is an extensive piece at the LA Times about how perhaps the largest Medicare fraud case in US history intersected with the College Admissions scam involving the rich and well-connected.

Philip Esformes before the fall. As a flight risk he has been behind bars since July 2016 awaiting sentencing in September.

Now if only a paper with the stature of the LA Times would put an investigative journalist to work on the Kenyan Killer case where as one reader pointed out it would be difficult for the alleged prolific killer Billy Chemirmir to pawn that much jewelry without help, a network of criminals (dependent on old ladies being murdered) might be exposed.
I’ve reported previously on the case of Philip Esformes who ran a nursing home empire built on defrauding you and me, American taxpayers, but haven’t written about the Singer scam designed for elites to get their little darlings into top tier colleges.

FBI found clues to college admissions scandal years earlier in massive Medicare fraud case

Federal authorities were combing through the finances and phone records of a Miami businessman suspected of Medicare fraud when they came across a curious name: Rick Singer.

Rick Singer https://www.foxnews.com/us/who-is-william-rick-singer-college-admissions-cheating-scandals-alleged-ringleader

Philip Esformes, who was accused of farming out patients from his nursing homes to steal millions in bogus insurance claims, had sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a foundation Singer controlled. And in text messages discovered on Esformes’ phone, the men discussed how one of Esformes’ sons had performed on his college entrance exams.
Only years later would authorities learn what Esformes had paid Singer to do: Slip his daughter into USC as a fake soccer player and fix his youngest son’s college entrance exam, according to statements a prosecutor made in court and sources familiar with the case.
Singer has said he struck similar deals with dozens more parents, an admission that has roiled higher education and implicated elites from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the Newport coast.
But in 2016, when agents seized the iPhone Esformes used to text Singer and obtained their messages, Singer was a peripheral, if curious, player in an enormous healthcare fraud investigation. The Esformes case marks the first time Singer is known to have crossed the radar of law enforcement.

[….]

It is unclear how much federal authorities uncovered of Esformes’ dealings with Singer while investigating his case. But at his trial in March, a fraud expert used by the government to make sense of his finances testified that Esformes had made $400,000 in payments over several years to Singer’s foundation. At least some of the money was traced to Medicaid and Medicare funds, the expert testified.

Too funny! Esformes paid Singer $400,000 and his daughter did get into USC as a fake soccer player, but get this…

The daughter, who could not be reached for comment, was enrolled at USC for a year before transferring to a fashion school in New York City, according to a source with knowledge of the case and her LinkedIn profile.

There is much more, continue reading here.

Another Middle Easterner Booked in Louisiana Food Stamp Fraud Bust

07/03/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

New Americans helping our economy! Not!
The story is from ten days ago and really is an update of news I shared in March about a food stamp fraud bust and feticide(!) case being unraveled in Alexandria, Louisiana.

In posts I write about food stamp fraud I often refer back to literally dozens and dozens of such scams reported at Refugee Resettlement Watch where I cataloged them for over ten years.
Wordpress shut down RRW!
As most of you know RRW has been determined by WordPress to contain content they don’t like, but I am working on getting the offending content up and available again in the near future, hopefully in a few weeks.
The interesting thing about this Louisiana case, involving three men who appear to be Middle Easterners, is that the local news is publishing their photos! It is extremely rare to see a photo of food stamp traffickers.
Continue reading “Another Middle Easterner Booked in Louisiana Food Stamp Fraud Bust” →

Wyoming: Kahn Brothers Found Guilty in Drug Conspiracy Case

06/04/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

Kahn “preyed on” addicted people for years, and the verdict confirmed that a person’s profession does not put them above the law.***

(Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Sprecher)

One more story about ‘new Americans’ getting rich (for awhile) by dealing in controlled substances ostensibly for pain management. Ho hum! So what else is new?

Dr. Kahn and Lyn — Dr. Shakeel Kahn and wife Lyn

However, this story interested me for the primary reason that it is from Wyoming (not Michigan! not California! not any state where large numbers of new Americans are selling drugs, or dirty docs are prescribing them!).
By the way, and unrelated to this story, is the fact that Wyoming is the only state in the nation that doesn’t resettle refugees.
Also, interesting is the fact that Dr. Shakeel Kahn’s wife, originally a patient, then a ‘wife’ and partner in the crime, became a witness for the prosecution after their arrest in one of their several homes.
People traveled from faraway states to Wyoming to pick up their illegal drug prescriptions.
Additionally, Kahn was implicated in the death of one patient from Arizona.
Continue reading →

New Jersey Couple Ripped-off US Taxpayers for $4.5 Million in Food Stamp Fraud Scheme

04/13/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

Screenshot (939) — I am forced to use a photo of the busted business when no images of the alleged scammers can be found! And, of course, no nationality or immigration status mentioned!

Here is the kicker in this case: ‘new American’ store owner Ibrahim Zughbi had been previously convicted of food stamp fraud and was not allowed to own and operate a store that accepted food stamps, but he worked his way around that prohibition!
See how….
Continue reading →