Shocking PROOF of the Somali scandal exposed: Brave survivor drops bombshell evidence... and how he was brutally silenced
SOURCE:Daily Mail
For nearly a year, Minnesota tax payers paid hundreds of dollars a day for Cain Pence's care.
For nearly a year, Minnesota tax payers paid hundreds of dollars a day for Cain Pence's care.
But according to the wheelchair-bound stroke survivor, that care was never given.
Instead, the fifth-generation Minnesotan, who was left disabled after suffering a medical event five years ago, was abandoned inside his apartment while a health care agency billed Medicaid and Medicare daily in his name - in part of an alleged massive Somali-run fraud scheme that has milked the state's welfare system.
Once active and independent, Pence, now 50, says he was threatened, ignored, and accused of racism when he demanded the help he was legally entitled to receive.
'I kind of hate the term 'vulnerable', but that's what I was and what I still am,' Pence told the Daily Mail from his apartment in downtown Minneapolis.
'I wouldn't wish what happened to me on anyone.'
Unlike many people here victimized by the fallout from the theft of at least $9 billion from the state's social services who've stayed silent for fear of being labeled racist, Pence became an official whistleblower earlier this year when he testified in front of the Minnesota House Fraud and Oversight Committee.
Pence believes his story reflects what has happened in Minnesota since Somalis fleeing their war-torn country arrived in the 1990s and began to take advantage of state's wildly generous social service system - while Democratic lawmakers turned a blind eye because the community represents a powerful voting bloc.
Cain Pence, 50, says he's among the victims of the massive welfare fraud scheme allegedly run by members of Minnesota's Somali community that has exploited the state's social services system and abandoned those in need of care
'Why Minnesota? There's a unique reason why it was Minnesota,' Pence said.
'We have more social services. We have a very liberal political culture. We have a Scandinavian ethos of helping people, which is not a bad thing.
'And then we had very generous welfare systems, and then this group of people that exploited that.
'At the same time the whole George Floyd thing happened and then you literally couldn't say one word against a Somali. So it all worked together to create really a tsunami of fraud.'
After stints in a nursing home and a group home, which he described as neglectful and chaotic, Pence was desperate to live on his own.
'There were a lot of problems in the group home,' he said. 'We weren't getting the food we needed. They weren't taking us out. I didn't want to go back to a nursing home.'
In what seemed like a miraculous turn of events at the time, a social worker introduced him to Integrated Community Supports (ICS), a Minnesota program that allows disabled residents to live in private apartments while receiving daily assistance.
'He told me I could live on my own and get up to seven hours of service a day,' Pence said. 'Groceries. Walks. Appointments. Church. Whatever I needed.'
The whistleblower was enrolled in the state's Integrated Community Supports program, which allows disabled residents to live in private apartments while receiving daily assistance
Pence says he was promised up to seven hours a day of care through the ICS program but didn't receive any service at all
Jama Mohamod oversaw American Home Health Care, the agency that was supposed to provide care and service to Pence. He repeatedly denied the allegations when confronted by a local news station in September
When Pence saw the apartment, he thought he had finally caught a break.
'It was very beautiful,' he said. 'I remember thinking, this is too good to be true.'
It was.
According to Pence, Jama Mohamod, a Somali native who oversaw the health provider called American Home Health Care, billed the state $276 per day, every day, for his care.
The money was routed through Hennepin County to Medicaid and Medicare - while delivering no services at all to Pence himself.
'I wasn't getting services seven hours a day,' he said. 'I wasn't getting seven hours a week. I was getting zero.'
Pence says he saved the billing records.
'$276 a day, seven days a week,' he said. 'And I got nothing. You do the math.'
Pence has held on to the billing records and shared a receipt which showed the $276 charges that were being billed daily to the state for 'home care service'
American Home Health Services' was listed as being headquartered in Maple Grove, Minnesota, where Mohamod also lives
He was not alone.
Pence says roughly 12 disabled residents lived in the building, all generating daily payments for American Home Health Care but never getting any help themselves.
'For me alone, they billed about $75,000 in ten months,' he said. 'Other people were billed $300 or $400 a day. They weren't getting service either.'
When Pence demanded the care he was legally entitled to, he says the response was intimidation.
'He would threaten me,' Pence said of Mohammed. 'He'd say, 'If you don't like it, leave. I'll throw you out on the street'.'
And, repeatedly, Pence claims, he was accused of racism. 'He'd call me a racist for asking for groceries,' Pence said.
'For asking for a walk.' Pence said the American Home Health Care operation was entirely Somali-run.
The heightened scrutiny comes after federal prosecutors uncovered a $250 million fraud network that exploited the state's social services and exposed a 'large-scale money laundering' operation
Pence became an official whistleblower in September when he testified in front of the Minnesota House Fraud and Oversight Committee
At one point, Pence said he managed to go to the offices in person where he was insulted all over again by employees who seemed to just be sitting around talking on the phone.
He said the staff routinely refused him even the most basic tasks.
'They wouldn't make the bed,' he said. 'They wouldn't clean. They wouldn't help me walk. They sat on their phones all day.'
When Pence complained to the state, he says he was ignored.
'I called the Department of Human Services. I called the Attorney General's office. I called the ombudsman,' he said. 'Over and over.'
Each time, he got the same response.
'They'd send a letter saying they looked into it and no action was needed,' Pence said.
He said he asked a health reporter for the local paper, the Star-Tribune, to come hear his story and go through all his receipts.
She came, he said, and listened to him sympathetically for three hours. But she never wrote a story.
Pence eventually became a whistleblower, testifying before state lawmakers and fraud investigators.
'I pointed right at them and said, 'You didn't do a damn thing,' he said.
What finally broke the case was proof that American Home Health Care billed the state for giving him service even when Pence was out of town.
'I had time-stamped photos of me at a Jesuit retreat,' he said. 'They billed the full amount.'
The same happened when he visited friends in Iowa. 'They billed every single day,' he said. 'It wouldn't have mattered if I was alive or dead.'
That last point became all too real when another ICS participant died alone while still being billed for care.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has come under intense criticism amid the mounting allegations of widespread fraud within the state
'He was getting 12 hours of service a day — $400 a day — and nobody even checked on him,' Pence said. 'His mother didn't know he had died for days.'
Pence says the fraud continued because officials were terrified of being accused of racism.
'That's the shield,' he said. 'Call anyone who complains a racist and everything stops. Well, that's what needs to stop.'
He added: 'They need to stop calling everyone racist if they question something or speak out.'
He accused Minnesota's political leadership - specifically Governor Tim Walz, State Attorney General Keith Ellison and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar - of deliberately looking the other way.
The governor has come under fire over the explosive allegations of widespread fraud within the state.
Initial reports emerged last month of a massive Covid-era scheme involving the federally funded nonprofit group Feeding Our Future.
At least 78 people, 72 of whom are Somali, have been charged in connection with the illicit plot so far.
Pence has accused the governor as well as State Attorney General Keith Ellison and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar - of deliberately looking the other way
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Somali American, has rejected suggestions that the fraud case reflects broader wrongdoing within the Somali community
'They care more about votes than about disabled people,' Pence said.
'They don't want to touch anything involving Somalis. That's what really makes me mad. They don't care at all about the people like me.'
Pence eventually managed to escape the ICS program when American Home Health Care was evicted from their premises.
But thousands of other vulnerable Minnesotans were not as lucky.
'These programs are supposed to help the handicapped,' he said. 'Instead, they're being exploited.'
Pence is out of a wheelchair and living in another apartment where he is receiving legitimate assistance. But he refuses to stay silent.
'I saved the records,' he said. 'I did the math. I told the truth.'