Group home investigation roils politics in Minnesota — and Liberia
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.
The revelation that a Liberian government official has been running Twin Cities group homes from thousands of miles away has led to bipartisan calls for reform in Minnesota and divided reactions in West Africa. Despite the outcry echoing on both sides of the Atlantic, the Walz administration has remained silent.
The investigation, which was jointly reported by MPR News and its national investigative unit, APM Reports, found that the state of Minnesota paid $36 million dollars to group home companies linked to Sekou Dukuly over the past decade. But since the beginning of 2024, Dukuly has also served as the managing director of Liberia’s state-owned port system.
Despite relocating to West Africa, Dukuly kept a hand in Minnesota’s booming group home industry. He told a state licensing board he was the director in charge of day-to-day operations at three group homes operated by Golden Touch Health Care — until a reporter called him last week and he abruptly removed himself from the position at two of them.
Dukuly-linked group homes have been the subject of state maltreatment investigations on at least 22 occasions. Four of those cases involved the death of a resident. Last fall, a 46-year-old woman with a serious lung condition died after collapsing on the bathroom floor of a group home Dukuly ran. The state determined the facility neglected her because its staff weren’t trained in CPR, a finding the group home is appealing.
After the story published Monday, both of Minnesota’s major-party gubernatorial candidates said the investigation revealed serious gaps in state oversight. Both candidates vowed to root out fraud in state government, although neither state nor federal law enforcement agencies have accused Dukuly of fraud.
“This new reporting raises enormously troubling questions about the Walz administration's failed oversight of the state's group home industry,” Republican nominee and Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth said at a press conference Tuesday. “This disturbing report underscores that each and every public program must be vetted from top to bottom.”
Demuth said she would fire all existing commissioners and deputy commissioners and replace them with "leaders that will be accountable."
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic nominee, said in an interview on MPR’s Morning Edition that the state should have detected what Dukuly was doing, “instead of having a bunch of incredible reporters having to go out there to unearth everything.”
“This story, complicated as it is, is one where you look at it with some common sense, and you say, ‘How did this happen?’” Klobuchar said. “In the end, this is on the government to do its job.”
Klobuchar said state regulations should clarify that assisted living directors must have a regular, on-site presence in the facilities they oversee, and she said legislators should “reconsider” a 2024 state law that blocks cities from revoking the rental licenses of group homes. Klobuchar also said the state should “streamline” oversight of group homes into one agency, not splitting it between the Health Department and Human Services Department.
Klobuchar said the state needs “a governor that's going to take responsibility and fix things.” She added: “Our taxpayers deserve better.”
Asked about the MPR News/APM Reports investigation at a press conference, Gov. Tim Walz declined to comment, saying only that his team was discussing the matter.
Walz’s Department of Health, which licensed the group homes linked to Dukuly, and his Department of Human Services, which paid them to care for disabled residents, offered conflicting statements to MPR News in response to the investigation. The Human Services Department called the findings about Dukuly “deeply concerning,” but the Health Department said it was aware he lived overseas and that state law doesn’t require assisted living directors be in Minnesota. The executive director of the state board that licenses such professionals, however, said the role can’t be done properly from afar.
Top Republican lawmakers also highlighted the reporting.
State Rep. Danny Nadeau, the co-vice chair of the House Health Finance and Policy Committee, posted on Facebook that the investigation was “deeply troubling, not simply because of one apparent overseas operator, but because of what it reveals about a system that appears to have allowed this to happen in the first place.”
“This is bigger than one individual or one company. It's a failure of the system, and the Legislature needs to act,” Nadeau added. “This can be a wake-up call, and we should treat it like one.”
Nadeau said group home managers need to be “physically available” to oversee operations. And he said state regulators need “stronger, more frequent” inspections, “clear and quick” enforcement for lapses in care and escalating consequences for “repeated violations rather than simply allowing problems to continue.”
In Washington, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in House leadership, took aim at the nation’s immigration system, even though a copy of Dukuly’s passport shows that he is a U.S. citizen.
“I am tired of reading stories like this every day in Minnesota,” Emmer posted on X. “State and local leaders need to be held accountable.”
Five thousand miles away, the report went viral on Liberian social media. On Facebook, pundits shared screenshots and clips from an MPR News video summarizing the investigation.
“What about the deaths?” Will Debo, a Liberian social media influencer, asked in one video, referring to Dukuly-linked group home residents who have died. “He's in Liberia … telling these people he’s running the company there.”
Despite its small size, Liberia plays an outsize role in the maritime shipping industry. Worldwide, about 1 in 6 ocean-faring ships is technically registered in Liberia, because the country allows commercial vessels to sail under its flag regardless of where they are based. Most of those ships will never dock in Liberia, but close to $3 billion in merchandise still moves in and out of its four ports, all operated by the National Port Authority, the state-owned corporation that Dukuly manages.
A spokesperson for Liberian President Joseph Boakai, who appointed Dukuly to the role, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dukuly has not responded publicly, but he has been sharing defenders’ posts on his own Facebook page, some labeling the story as political “propaganda.” Supporters argued that Dukuly had done nothing illegal.
“See exact excerpts of the so-called bombshell article which state clearly that Sekou Hussein Dukuly did absolutely nothing wrong or criminal!” Henry Costa, one of Dukuly’s associates, posted on Facebook. "Those who want him (to) fall can now go start fasting and praying for him to be accused. But for now, there is no single accusation.”