A Portland company that provides health care services for people with disabilities is denying a former employee’s allegations of falsified records and said Friday that recent scrutiny around its billing practices has been amplified by national attacks targeting the Somali community.
Gateway Community Services also said it is working to address recent state audit findings related to overbilling. Nothing in the audits indicated intentional wrongdoing or that the company had billed for services it did not provide, it said.
The allegations from a former employee, Chris Bernardini, were first reported by conservative media in Maine six months ago, but resurfaced this week in national news outlets, including Fox News and NewsNation, which also referenced a series of fraud schemes involving Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
Those cases have been highlighted by President Donald Trump as part of his crackdown on immigration. Gateway also has ties to the Somali community, and was founded by Abdullahi Ali, a Somali American who last year ran for office in Jubaland, a state in his home country.
In a lengthy statement released Friday by its lawyer, Pawel Binczyk, Gateway said recent reporting on the allegations and audit findings has been misleading, has led to threats against its employees and has resulted in misinformation being spread about Gateway Community Services Maine, a sister nonprofit.
“Gateway Community Services maintains strict billing, documentation and compliance
protocols, and has cooperated with state oversight agencies spanning both the (Republican Paul) LePage and (Democrat Janet) Mills administrations,” the statement said.
“These reckless narratives have real impacts on the thousands of Mainers, a majority of whom are not immigrants, that rely on Gateway for services, as well as the many employees, again many of whom are not immigrants, that work to assist those Mainers,” it continues.
FORMER EMPLOYEE ALLEGES RECORDS FALSIFICATION
Gateway Community Services is a limited liability company that provides support and services to people with disabilities. It was founded by Ali in 2015, along with Gateway Community Services Maine, a nonprofit that provides similar services for people who are uninsured and community programs for young people. Ali told the Press Herald last year that the two agencies employ more than 250 people combined.
Ali declined a request for an interview through Binczyk this week, with his attorney saying he wanted to keep a low profile due to ongoing threats.
The Robinson Report, a Substack newsletter from the editor of the conservative online publication the Maine Wire, first reported in May on the allegations by Bernardini. The former billing and payroll specialist at Gateway said he observed falsification of records while working there from 2018 to 2025.
Bernardini said he believed the false records were designed to inflate the company’s payments from MaineCare. An anonymous former employee also made similar allegations.
Bernardini, who is reported to now live in Florida, did not respond to a Facebook message from a Press Herald reporter seeking an interview this week, and other attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
But he reiterated his claims in interviews with national conservative news outlets this week, including NewsNation and Fox News, who drew similarities between Bernardini’s allegations and the Minnesota cases. Concerns in Minnesota have largely centered around a $250 million fraud scheme involving a federally funded child nutrition program.
Dozens of people have been convicted to date in connection with the case, ABC News reported this week.
In September, the U.S. Justice Department announced separate charges related to the defrauding of housing stabilization and autism programs also involving people with ties to the Somali community in Minnesota.
“I saw a lot of fraud on the back end with the billing claims that were just not accurate and not adding up,” Bernardini said in an interview on Fox’s Will Cain Show, calling it similar to the cases in Minnesota. He estimated the amount of fraud in Maine “could be in the millions.”
Bernardini told the Maine Wire he reported his allegations to the Maine Office of the State Auditor. Auditor Matt Dunlap told the Press Herald this week that he could not comment on whether his office had received a complaint.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Maine Attorney General also said they could not comment on whether they had been made aware of or if they were investigating any complaints.
Spokespeople for Gov. Janet Mills did not respond Friday to emails asking if the state is looking into the allegations or plans to, though at least one Republican lawmaker has called for an investigation of Gateway based on Bernardini’s claims and state audit findings.
“The Mills administration has neglected obvious and credible reports of Somali-linked systemic fraud in the MaineCare system,” Assistant Senate Minority Leader Matt Harrington, R-Sanford, said in a statement. “This is an outrageous betrayal of Maine taxpayers. I’m alarmed that Gov. Mills doesn’t seem even remotely concerned that this organization is potentially defrauding the Maine taxpayers who are struggling to get by.”
Gateway, meanwhile, is denying Bernardini’s allegations, saying in its statement Friday that he never raised concerns about billing, fraud or impropriety while working at the company for seven years. After he was laid off in April 2025, he began approaching news outlets with allegations, and he and his wife harassed employees they felt were responsible for the layoff, Gateway said.
“These allegations are an attempt at revenge by a disgruntled employee whose wife promised that ‘bad things’ would happen,” the company said in its statement.
DHHS PREVIOUSLY IDENTIFIED OVERPAYMENTS
The allegations come after the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the MaineCare program, previously identified $662,608 in overpayments made to Gateway between 2015 and 2018. That was discovered after the state conducted multiyear audits of the organization in 2018 and 2024, both in response to complaints, DHHS spokesperson Lindsay Hammes said in an email.
The audits resulted in the department issuing formal notices of violation and “final informal review decisions” imposing sanctions. The department is still in the process of recouping the overpayments and an appeal of the 2024 findings is ongoing, Hammes said.
The department does not track the percentage of audits that result in notices of violation, though Hammes said recoupments exceeding $100,000 from a single review “are generally considered higher than normal.”
She said the department typically reports any “issues of concern, including suspicion of fraud” to the attorney general for investigation. Hammes said the department could not confirm whether any specific matter regarding Gateway has been referred to the attorney general’s office.
Gateway said none of the audit findings have indicated it billed for services it did not provide. After presenting the department with more information in response to the findings, it said it paid less than was initially assessed — having paid $125,058 in 2018 and $34,095 in 2024.
Gateway said it is also working through another audit with the state currently, but could not discuss the details in depth.
“It is normal — expected, even — for (state) audits to identify issues,” the organization said. “In fact, it would be more concerning if an agency emerged with no findings at all. Nothing identified in these audits indicates intentional wrongdoing by Gateway Community Services.”
GATEWAY SAYS RHETORIC HAS AMPLIFIED CLAIMS
The allegations against Gateway come as Trump has recently targeted Somali immigrants, particularly in Minnesota, with inflammatory and racist rhetoric. At a White House meeting this month, he called Somalis “garbage” that he doesn’t want in the country.
The president is also reported to have recently launched an immigration enforcement operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
In its statement Friday, Gateway said the national rhetoric around Somali Americans has fed into the way the company and its founder, Ali, have been portrayed. The company said claims that Ali “was ‘running to be the Warlord of Jubaland’ and ‘bankrolled militias’ are distorted and tinged with animus against him on account of his ethnic background.”
Those claims are based on “heavily edited” clips from an interview and have not included proper context, Gateway said.
“Mr. Ali has been involved in politics in Somalia and has run for local office there, as he has remained as committed to serving the community that he came out of as he has been to serving the community here that took him in,” the company said.
