Minnesota group homes run by Liberian official shut down due to fraud allegations, safety risks

The Minnesota Department of Human Services is suspending payments to all group home companies affiliated with a high-ranking government official in Liberia, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud,” following an MPR News and APM Reports investigation this week. The Department of Health says it will shut down three group homes he managed and will transfer their residents to other facilities.

The investigation published Monday found that Sekou Dukuly, the managing director of Liberia’s National Port Authority, had been the director at three Golden Touch Health Care group homes since 2025. Even though he lived thousands of miles away, Dukuly told a state licensing board he was personally in charge of day-to-day operations at the company’s facilities in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center — until a reporter contacted him last week.

The Human Services Department confirmed Thursday it had placed “payment withholds” on assisted living facilities affiliated with Dukuly. An agency spokesperson said the pause is used “to protect taxpayer dollars” during an investigation “when there are credible allegations of Medicaid fraud.”

“Payment withholds are not, by themselves, a finding that fraud has occurred,” the spokesperson added. “This can only be determined in court.”

Citing the lack of leadership at three facilities and the disruption in state payments, the Health Department issued an immediate temporary suspension and revocation of Golden Touch Health Care’s three licenses. The agency said it had "determined there are licensing violations that pose an imminent risk of harm to the health or safety of residents" and will find new homes for people living there.

“Golden Touch does not have a licensed assisted living director, and the prior assisted living director was not regularly engaged at the facility,” the three notices said. “Without appropriate leadership in place, the disruption in payment will create an imminent risk to the health and safety of residents.”

In a statement, the Health Department explained that the immediate temporary suspension allows the department to transfer residents to other facilities, and the revocation would permanently terminate the facilities and prevent the owners and managers from obtaining new licenses for five years.

“People residing in an assisted living facility in Minnesota deserve to receive the best possible care and have reassurance that facilities are being held to the highest standards for health and safety,” the Health Department said in a statement. “MDH will continue to work closely with our partners to ensure the health and safety of residents as these actions move forward.”

Dukuly did not immediately respond to text and email messages seeking comment on the state’s action. He declined an interview request for the investigation published Monday, saying that the “public record speaks for itself on the operational and licensing questions” related to group homes linked to him.

Over the past decade, Dukuly has had a hand in 24 group homes in the Twin Cities metro area. During that time, the state paid companies linked to him $36 million dollars, including just over $4 million to Golden Touch Health Care between 2022 and 2024, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that tracks government spending.

Last fall, a 46-year-old woman with a serious lung condition died after collapsing on the bathroom floor at a Golden Touch Health Care group home. The state determined the facility neglected her because its staff weren’t trained in CPR, a finding the group home is appealing. 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.

Dukuly co-founded Golden Touch Health Care in 2016. The company advertised care that is “precious as gold and as warm as your personal touch.” But MPR News and APM Reports’ review of local police reports, court records and state maltreatment investigations revealed a darker picture of life inside the company’s facilities.

In 2021, court records show a twice-convicted sex offender living in a Golden Touch Health Care facility brought a woman back to his room and allegedly raped her. The woman, who lived in a nearby group home, was vulnerable to sexual exploitation because of a traumatic brain injury. In a subsequent lawsuit, her mother claimed Golden Touch Health Care had acted negligently when staff left her unsupervised in a room with a sex offender. Dukuly and his co-founder settled with the mother out of court.

And in 2023, the only staff member working at a Golden Touch Health Care facility took off in the middle of their shift, leaving five vulnerable adults who required 24/7 care unattended, according to a maltreatment investigation. During the unsupervised hour and a half, police responded to a 911 call from a resident who said their housemate had punched a hole in a door, broke a bathroom mirror and pulled an outlet out of the wall.

In 2025, Dukuly put himself in charge of daily operations at the Golden Touch group homes after an assisted living director he appointed pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud at a previous job. The fraud occurred at a company not connected to Dukuly.

Golden Touch Health Care withheld nearly $15,000 in taxes from its employee paychecks but didn’t pass that money on to the state, a lien filed against one of Dukuly’s group home properties shows. The state put tax liens on two other group home companies linked to Dukuly as well.

A businessman who opened a mineral water bottling plant in Liberia with Dukuly also provided receipts documenting nearly $300,000 in international wire transfers to American bank accounts for Golden Touch Health Care and another company linked to Dukuly. Dukuly and the businessman, Yang Dan, are embroiled in a lawsuit over control of the bottling plant.

The enforcement action against Golden Touch Health Care was a rare step for the Department of Health. As of this spring, the department had revoked only eight group home licenses since 2021, when it first started licensing them as small assisted living facilities, according to its spokesman.

The Health Department licenses approximately 1,600 assisted living facilities with five or fewer residents. Traditionally such facilities were licensed by the Department of Human Services, which also funds group homes through Medicaid. The Health Department licensing program has fueled the rapid growth of such facilities in the northwest metro area.

An earlier MPR News/APM Reports investigation found that since late 2022, the Health Department has investigated the deaths of at least 32 people in the facilities it licenses.

On Wednesday, the Health Department also revoked the licenses for two other group homes that were not connected to Dukuly. Prosecutors alleged last week that the group homes licensed to Homefelt Assisted Living were connected to a sex trafficking operation in the Twin Cities.