Tag: fraud

Dem Kissimmee mayor arrested on grand theft, fraud charges: AG Uthmeier

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Wednesday that earlier in the morning, Democrat Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa had been arrested. He said his office was charging her with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud.

Details on the case are currently limited. Uthmeier said that a press conference would be held at 2 pm to provide further details.

Per WESH, a special prosecutor found probable cause earlier in 2026 to initiate impeachment proceedings against Espinosa, alleging that she had withheld public funds and failed to disclose personal interests. She was accused of disbursing $50,000 in grants to businesses that had been owned by her and her family. It is unclear if her arrest is connected to these allegations.

Keep reading

A Pollster Just Admitted Faking Its Numbers, and The Fallout Is Huge!

A polling firm that spent months pumping out numbers in key races across the country admitted Tuesday evening that nearly all of them were fake.

Wedgewood Polls now claims the entire operation was a social experiment meant to expose lazy vetting in the polling world. Some election observers aren’t buying that explanation, and the timing of the confession gives them every reason to doubt it.

In its statement, Wedgewood cast itself as a kind of whistleblower. “Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,” the firm said.

It then described what it claimed was the project’s goal. “We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary? The short answer: Far too easy.”

The statement also turned to the aggregators that published its work. “Despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate data source,” Wedgewood claimed.

Next, the firm addressed the press. “Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms-including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS NOW,” it added. “The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”

Mark Mitchell, the head pollster of The Honest Poll, didn’t buy that explanation for a second.

Keep reading

Washington Post Accidentally Reveals More Evidence Implicating Ilhan Omar In Fraud

Buried in a report aimed at discrediting ongoing probes into Rep. Ilhan Omar, The Washington Post divulged fresh evidence suggesting her previous marriage to her alleged brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was a sham.

In recounting the first Trump administration’s ultimately inconclusive investigation into some of the same issues federal officials are examining anew concerning the congresswoman’s background, the Post reveals that Elmi once filed a petition to have his residency status, derived from his marriage-based green card, shifted from conditional to permanent. According to the newspaper, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) “requested additional evidence due to concerns over the validity of his marriage,” at which point Elmi pulled his application.

This immediately raises three questions: What was it in that application that gave immigration officials pause? Why was it that Elmi dropped his bid to obtain permanent residency if the marriage was legitimate? And did authorities in the first Trump administration vigorously pursue these issues, and are they vigorously pursuing them now to the extent there are potential legal issues arising therefrom not bound by statutes of limitation?

While the Post mentions this matter in passing, there is critical additional context here that the newspaper omitted, which ties Elmi’s abandonment of his permanent residency push to Omar.

Elmi almost certainly filed and then withdrew an I-751 petition. Under federal law, typically, within the 90-day period before “the second anniversary of the date on which an alien obtained” a green card, such aliens must file an I-751 to remove conditions on their residency. Absent circumstances like death or divorce, petitioners must file jointly with their spouses.

Elmi and Omar did not legally divorce until 2017, years after he had left the U.S. and returned to his native United Kingdom. The alleged siblings were married here in 2009. Even if it took an exceptionally long period of time for Elmi to receive his marriage-based green card, that period plus two years almost assuredly would have fallen long before 2017. So presumably, they would have filed their petition jointly.

Per the current instructions for filing an I-751, petitioners must show evidence that their marriage “was entered in ‘good faith’ and was not for the purpose of circumventing immigration laws.” To do so, they must provide a number of supporting documents, like the birth certificates of children, contracts demonstrating joint occupancy/residency, “financial records showing joint ownership of assets and joint responsibility for liabilities,” and “other documents” and sworn affidavits demonstrating one’s marriage is legitimate.

When filing jointly, one’s spouse needs to sign, affirming, under penalty of perjury, that the petition and all supporting documents are “complete, true, and correct.”

Enter Ilhan Omar, and key facts that The Washington Post and others appear to have missed. As I documented in my 2020 book, American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party, during the 2018-19 period, then-State Rep. Ilhan Omar faced an ethics probe resulting in a finding that she had improperly spent $3,400 in campaign funds.

Part of that improper spending centered on legal fees, including to immigration lawyers. Omar hired those attorneys to help her with “crisis management” beginning in August 2016, when, following her historic primarying of a 44-year Democrat-Farm-Labor incumbent in Minnesota House District 60B, word first began swirling that Elmi was Omar’s brother, and her marriage to him constituted a marriage/immigration fraud scandal.

Keep reading

Ilhan Omar Breaks Silence After Feds Raid Her Home in Video Statement Begging for Money – Claims Trump is “Running Scared”

Somali Rep. Ilhan Omar on Wednesday broke her silence, begging for money in a social media video more than a week after her home was raided by the Department of Homeland Security in an ongoing criminal fraud investigation.

Omar’s Washington, DC home was raided early last Monday morning in a criminal fraud investigation that is looking at Omar’s immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a teen. Investigators were seen hauling boxes of evidence out of her home last week.

Omar previously released a statement, hours after the pre-dawn raid began, writing on X, “I’m ok.” She continued, “Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”

Since the raid, the years-long investigation, which began under Biden, has expanded further. It was also revealed that the warrants were approved by far-left federal magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh, an Obama appointee who donated to Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 White House bid, debunking any claim of weaponization against the Somali fraudster.

Now, Omar’s begging for more donations to “fight Trump and his administration,” claiming the investigation is meant to “intimidate me and so many people right before the midterm elections,” and that Trump is “running scared.”

She claims that she will be “out there campaigning alongside all of you and making sure that we beat back all of this and that we win in the midterms, win the House, win the Senate, and hold this administration accountable.”

That might be hard to do from prison or Nayib Bukele’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador.

Keep reading

Oz Says Minnesota Fraudsters Bribed Moms $1,500 to Fake Autism Diagnoses

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said fraudsters in Minnesota bribed mothers roughly $1,500 per child to falsely claim their children were autistic, saddling the children with diagnoses they did not have.

Oz made the remarks at an appearance alongside President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, crediting the administration’s anti-fraud task force and independent reporting for exposing the scheme.

The CMS administrator framed the abuse as a theft of more than money.

“Fraud doesn’t just steal our money. Fraud steals people’s lives and it also steals our trust as a nation, and that is devastating to any country,” Oz said.

He said the scheme carried two victims. A child wrongly labeled autistic carries that record going forward, Oz said, while mothers of children who actually need the services are left unable to afford care.

Oz said that after reviewing the reporting, CMS examined providers operating in Minnesota’s 14 programs flagged as high-risk for fraud and found roughly a third could not be validated.

“One in three shouldn’t have been doing that job,” Oz said. The agency is pursuing dozens of cases, including criminal investigations, and has deferred about half a billion dollars in payments to the state, he added.

The administrator credited independent journalist Nick Shirley, whose video of Minneapolis daycare and autism centers that appeared vacant drew federal attention. Shirley told CNN he uncovered around $100 million in fraud in a single day.

Minnesota’s autism program grew from about $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in recent years, according to figures Oz has cited publicly. Prosecutor Joe Thompson has said the state’s 14 high-risk programs cost $18 billion since 2018 and that more than half of that amount may be fraudulent.

Trump appointed Vance to lead a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which held its first meeting at the White House earlier this year and drew in Cabinet secretaries along with Justice Department and Treasury officials. Oz in December gave Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) a 60-day ultimatum to restore the program’s integrity or lose funding.

Walz has called the federal effort a “campaign of retribution,” accusing the administration of “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.”

Keep reading

Trump Puts Bounty on Government Fraud With New Whistleblower Reward Program

Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced a new initiative aimed at rooting out fraud in federal government programs — and Americans who help uncover it could receive a financial reward.

During an Oval Office event alongside Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials, Trump unveiled the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, which will allow Americans to report suspected corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities.

Under the program, whistleblowers may receive a commission of 1 percent of the fraud uncovered, according to the announcement. The administration also announced a $25 million fund for the initiative, with individual rewards advertised at up to $30,000.

The administration is directing Americans to America.gov/fraud, where they can submit reports of suspected fraud involving government programs.

Trump pointed to several examples of fraud and improper payments that his administration says it has identified, including 160,000 deceased individuals removed from food stamp rolls, 275,000 illegal aliens removed from Social Security, and 562,000 fraudulent small-business loans discovered.

He also cited the elimination of $125 billion in Obamacare subsidies for foreign migrants and the termination of funding to hundreds of allegedly fraudulent hospice facilities that he said had received $1.4 billion.

Keep reading

FTC Chairman: Feds Aim to Seize Half a Minneapolis City Block From Fraudsters

After Nick Shirley uncovered mass fraud, especially among childcare “learing centers” in Minneapolis, the Trump administration took action to incentivize whistleblowers and take back fraudsters’ ill-gotten gains.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson bashed mainstream media shills who spent years covering up for fraudsters in Minnesota and other Democrat states on Tuesday. He also explained how the Trump administration plans to hold the most infamous fraudulent Minneapolis childcare center and other fraudulent entities and individuals to account.

Ferguson began, “A lot of journalists [are] in the room today. Everyone knew about the Quality Learing Center. They were cited hundreds of times over the course of a couple years. No one reported it. None of your outlets reported it. It took one brave kid and a camera to make everyone aware of this, and it launched a revolution,” while pointing toward Shirley.

The Trump administration will now offer a 1% commission on the amount of fraud that individuals identify if it is substantial and verifiable. Shirley certainly deserves to be the first to receive such a commission.

Keep reading

DEMOCRAT CORRUPTION SCANDAL: Husband of Rhode Island Democrat Party Chair Indicted in Alleged $20 MILLION Fraud Scheme That Helped Destroy Community College

Michael Perik, a Jamestown, Rhode Island businessman and the husband of Rhode Island Democratic Party Chair Liz Beretta-Perik, faces a dozen felony charges in a sweeping Ohio indictment accusing him and two others of orchestrating a coordinated scheme that diverted roughly $20 million in federal financial aid, Pell Grants, and state subsidies from Eastern Gateway Community College before the institution collapsed.

Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber announced the indictments on October 8, 2026, following a multi-year investigation by his Special Investigations Unit.

A Jefferson County grand jury returned a 24-count indictment charging Perik and co-defendant Nicole Rowe Colclasure with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activities (racketeering), aggravated theft of $1.5 million or more, theft in office, telecommunications fraud, bribery, having an unlawful interest in a public contract, receiving stolen property, and money laundering.

Former Eastern Gateway president and chief financial officer Michael Geoghegan faces nine related felony counts. Court appearances were scheduled for October 19.

According to the Ohio Auditor’s office, Perik allegedly used four for-profit entities he controlled, including the Student Resource Center, to improperly divert funds through fraudulent reimbursements and illegal incentive compensation.

Federal law bars incentive payments tied to enrollment and financial aid activities unless handled by a truly independent third party.

Investigators allege the companies did not operate independently; instead, they exercised significant control over enrollment, attendance verification, financial aid access, and other core functions.

Keep reading

No Record of Ilhan Omar’s Father’s U.S. Naturalization?

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) herself previously stated that she received her American citizenship through her father, whom she said became a naturalized citizen while she was still a legal minor. But a Trump administration investigation indicates that her father might never have obtained naturalization officially, making her citizenship likewise suspect.

While this report about Omar’s father has been circulating for a while, Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik and former candidate AJ Kern, who ran against Omar, claim to have obtained official letters from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) revealing no record of naturalization papers for Omar‘s father. USCIS has not yet confirmed this fact publicly, and the investigation into Omar and her family remains ongoing.

The New York Post reported last week that the recent raid on Omar‘s home was specifically related to her and her father‘s citizenship status. At the same time, the Post acknowledged that Kern had requested information about Nur Omar Mohamed — originally Nur Said Elmi Mohamed — which is how Kern claims she ended up with the letters.

Keep reading

Feds have DNA evidence that can prove Ilhan Omar committed immigration fraud, wed her brother: sources

Federal prosecutors are planning to use DNA evidence to prove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) committed immigration fraud, as part of the sprawling investigation into the congresswoman, sources told The Post.

People familiar with the years-long criminal probe said the feds have made use of whistleblowers, government records and now obtained DNA in an effort to substantiate decade-old allegations that Omar — and possibly members of her family like her father — defrauded immigration authorities.

One source said the DNA evidence was critical to proving an allegation that Omar married her brother when she wed Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 because she was trying to help him get a green card — which never came to fruition.

It’s unclear whether the DNA was taken before or after Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) searched the congresswoman’s home in Washington, DC, last Monday, when federal agents were seen exiting the bungalow with boxes marked “Seized Property Evidence.”

Another source pushed back on initial reports that investigators had gone “dumpster diving” in order to get DNA swabs of Omar, Elmi, who is currently residing in the UK, or family members.

Two more indicated that the execution of the search warrant on Oct. 12, coupled with the DNA and additional evidence, has provided a solid basis to bring charges of conspiracy to commit some form of immigration fraud before a grand jury, stemming from the probe initiated by the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office.

Given the case is being pursued as a general conspiracy, the evidence will prove useful even if some of the acts fall outside of the statute of limitations.

“If you argue a conspiracy, you can allege overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy that are outside the statute of limitations,” said Neama Rahmini, a former federal prosecutor.

Keep reading