Ellie Roth

The Health Department revoked the licenses for group homes owned and managed by Sekou Dukuly, the executive director of the National Port Authority of Liberia, as well as those connected to Andrea Sampson, a former Anoka County Attorney who prosecutors say used some of her properties to traffic women before converting them into group homes and billing Medicaid.

Golden Touch Health Care was one of several Minnesota group home companies linked to Sekou Dukuly, who has served as the managing director of the Liberian National Port Authority since 2024. He told state authorities in 2025 he was the licensed assisted living director for its three group homes — even though an MPR News/APM Reports investigation found he lived overseas.

Politicians in Minnesota and commentators in Liberia were stunned to learn that the managing director of the West African country’s National Port Authority was simultaneously serving as the assisted living director for three group homes in the northwestern Twin Cities.

Companies linked to Sekou Dukuly received $36 million in taxpayer money over the past decade to care for disabled adults in Minnesota group homes — despite multiple residents dying and repeated findings of neglect. Dukuly has also misrepresented his finances in Minnesota family courts, and he’s caught up in a lawsuit concerning a business venture overseas. But the state kept sending payments to the group home companies even after he took a job in the Liberian government, more than 5,000 miles away.

At least 50 Minnesota group home clients have died since late 2022 under circumstances serious enough to trigger a state maltreatment investigation. But many penalties amounted to fines of $5,000 or less, and most homes kept their licenses. When Ryan Riggs died in the backyard of his group home, the state’s initial fine was just $1,000.

Taxpayer-funded group homes help thousands of Minnesotans with physical or mental disabilities live as independently as possible. But the industry’s rapid growth in the Twin Cities’ northwestern suburbs has led to problems that leave vulnerable people in danger and local governments struggling with the consequences. Nowhere is that clearer than in Brooklyn Park, the state’s group home capital.

A company allegedly used to launder money stolen from the government in the Feeding Our Future fraud case owns at least five houses where taxpayer-funded group homes operate. Those group homes have collected millions of dollars from the government.

MPR News found problems tied to inspections and local political pressures that leave low-income renters in potential danger across greater Minnesota. In Bemidji, those problems have pushed their way to the surface.