Minnesota, USA – The current Managing Director of Liberia’s National Port Authority, Sekou Dukuly, built a multi-million dollar business empire from Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded group home industry while residents suffered neglect and death, an investigation by MPR News and APM Reports has found.
Dukuly, who was appointed to head Liberia’s government-owned ports in 2024, is linked to at least 24 group homes, almost all in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis. Companies tied to him have collected at least $36 million in taxpayer funds over the past 10 years, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook. While financial success was praised at his appointment ceremony in Monrovia, records in Minnesota show a different story. State regulators have found Dukuly-linked facilities neglected residents in 10 cases and investigated suspected maltreatment at least 22 times. Four of those investigations involved the death of a resident, and a fifth resident died after an improper discharge. Dukuly-linked homes make up a small fraction of Minnesota’s roughly 1,600 licensed facilities but account for a disproportionate share of state death investigations previously documented by MPR.
Running Homes From Abroad Until last week, Dukuly was still listed as the licensed assisted living director for three Golden Touch Health Care facilities, a position that requires regular on-site oversight, according to the Board of Executives for Long Term Services and Supports. Public records and social media posts indicate Dukuly has been living full-time in Liberia, where he manages port operations and chairs a political party fundraising committee. Following inquiries from reporters, Dukuly abruptly resigned as director of two facilities. As of Friday, he remained director of one. The Minnesota Department of Health said it recently became aware he was living overseas but stated that “nothing in statute prohibits a person from living out of state” and that the director role is “not required to be onsite.”
Health policy experts criticized that interpretation. “I don’t know where in the licensure and inspection process this is falling through the cracks,” said Ezra Golberstein, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “Running group homes from overseas is really messed up.” The Department of Human Services, which pays the homes through Medicaid, said an owner moving abroad “would raise concerns for our investigators.” Dukuly declined an interview, saying in a text message that “the public record speaks for itself.”
Deaths, Police Calls, and City Action The human cost is documented in state and police reports. Stacy Muchko, 46, died in October 2025 in a Golden Touch home in Brooklyn Park where Dukuly was director. She was left unattended in a bathroom for 20 minutes. Staff did not perform CPR, instead calling a nurse who called 911. The state found the home neglected her. The facility is appealing. Before Muchko, three other residents died of drug overdoses in Dukuly-linked homes in circumstances that triggered maltreatment investigations, including Tammy Fremgen in 2023 and Ollie Bickham, who overdosed twice in one week before being improperly discharged. He later died at his brother’s home.
Police say they know some addresses by heart. In New Hope, officers responded to two homes controlled by Sekou and Sheikh Dukuly 133 times in one year for fights, overdoses, and disturbances. In 2022, after resident Jake Zahradka died of an overdose, the city council unanimously voted to revoke the rental licenses for both homes. The Dukulys sold that chain for $3.5 million and sued the city for nearly $2 million, claiming discrimination. They lost. The case helped inspire a 2024 state law that stripped cities of the power to shut down group homes, a law Sheikh Dukuly publicly celebrated.
Financial Questions Court and financial records also raise questions about Dukuly’s business practices:
- In a 2018 child support case, a magistrate found Dukuly claimed only $13,400 in taxi income while his group home accounts showed more than $400,000 in deposits in six months, with spending on gym memberships, fast food, and luxury clothing. The court estimated his real income at $180,000.
- In a 2022 divorce filing, he swore under penalty of perjury he owned no businesses or real estate and had only $7,500 in the bank, despite owning at least five group home properties and a $500,000 home, and reporting millions in revenue.
- Three businesses linked to him withheld more than $45,000 in employee taxes but failed to remit it to the state, according to liens.
- In Liberia, Australian-based entrepreneur Yang Dan says he wired more than $300,000 to Golden Touch and Berkeley Heights Homes bank accounts in Minnesota to build a water bottling plant with Dukuly. The plant is now the subject of dueling police complaints and a lawsuit. Liberian police found no criminal conduct, calling it a business dispute.
Minnesota’s social services sector has faced intense scrutiny over Medicaid fraud, with federal prosecutors describing “industrial-scale” schemes. No fraud charges have been filed against Dukuly or his businesses. Golden Touch Health Care remains operational. In May, Dukuly took out nearly $500,000 in loans secured against two of his group home properties, including the house where Stacy Muchko died.