Somali business overbilled Maine Medicaid
Topline: “Three strikes and you’re out” is an excellent rule for baseball, but apparently not for Medicaid.
The Maine health-care company Gateway Community Services LLC was found to have overbilled Medicaid by $1.7 million in three separate audits before the state finally cut off its funding. The business is now under investigation for potential fraud.
Key facts: Gateway was founded in 2014 by Abdullahi Ali, a refugee from Somalia. The company specializes in “culturally aware services to refugees and immigrants to help them begin the process of healing and learning to navigate life in Maine,” including counseling and home health care.
Christopher Bernardini, a former program coordinator at Gateway for eight years, alleged in a May 2025 interview with the Robinson Report that Gateway forged records and billed Medicaid for services that were never performed. State lawmakers quickly called for an investigation.
A second former employee later corroborated the story in an interview with NewsNation. Gateway called the allegations “false,” “not accurate,” and “full of misinformation” on Facebook.
In December 2025, Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services released three past audits showing that Gateway overbilled Medicaid $125,059 in fiscal year 2016, $537,550 from 2017 to 2018 and over $1 million from 2021 to 2022.
The department also suspended all Medicaid payments to Gateway because of what it called a “credible allegation of fraud for which an investigation is pending.”
“The extent of the violations in this matter is large,” auditors wrote. “We have already audited you twice, already penalized you, already educated you — and the same problems continue.”
It remains unknown whether the Medicaid overbilling was deliberate fraud, and no criminal charges have been filed.
Gateway received nearly $29 million from Medicaid from 2019 to 2024, years after the overbilling issues were first identified, according to the audit. That includes $4.1 million paid in 2024, when Ali was simultaneously managing the company and unsuccessfully running for president of the Jubaland region of Somalia.
Ali has used his personal savings to provide “modest financial support” for the Jubaland State Forces militia group, Gateway’s lawyer confirmed to News Center Maine.
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Background: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security visited Gateway Community’s offices as part of a fraud investigation, according to News Center Maine.
Sen. James Comer, chair of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, also listed Gateway as an “organization of interest” as part of a broader investigation into “suspicious activity” within social services. Comer is focused on Gateway Community Services Maine, a nonprofit founded by Ali that is legally unaffiliated with Gateway Community Services LLC. The nonprofit accepted $1.2 million in government funding in 2024, but does not use Medicaid.
Comer identified 14 “persons of interest” at the company, including Deqa Dhallac, the nonprofit’s former assistant executive director. She is now a Democratic state lawmaker in Maine.
Summary: When billing errors go unchecked for years, it allows a potentially minor issue to grow into a national scandal like the one unfurling in Maine.
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