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Gov. LePage Accuses Media of 'Hiding Welfare Fraud'

Maine Gov. Paul LePage speaks during a conference on August 26, 2016.
File/MPBN

Governor Paul LePage says Maine’s media is complicit in welfare fraud because it didn’t immediately report on a publicly available federal affidavit that details allegations of welfare and other fraud at a halal grocery in Portland. The case blew into the general public yesterday, when a conservative website first reported it. The situation illustrates the different ways media outlets — including Maine Public Radio — decide to balance the general public interest, against an individual’s right to due process.

In a search warrant affidavit unsealed by the U.S. District Court in the spring, an FBI agent described a joint, undercover investigation deployed by the FBI, the IRS, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said there was probable cause to believe that food-stamp fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud and money laundering took place, in a scheme that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and maybe millions. A judge approved the warrant, and federal agents raided the Ahram grocery.

Charges still have not been filed. But Monday afternoon, Governor LePage for the first time drew attention to the affidavit following a report by an online media outlet called “Lifezette,” helmed by conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham. In a subsequent press release, LePage charged local Maine media with quote, “hiding welfare fraud.” He repeated the assertion in a Tuesday appearance on WVOM radio.

“We’ve known about it for a while. We’ve been trying to work with Maine media, you know the journalists in Maine to try to get it out to the people, but they just refused to do it,” LePage says. “In fact Rick if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were complicit in this fraud.”

LePage also says he hopes that the subjects of the investigation will be deported. His open commentary seemed to mark a shift in the administration’s willingness to go public with the case.

Maine Public Radio retrieved the FBI affidavit from Portland’s federal district court in August: At the time, Justice Department officials declined comment. After, Maine Public Radio contacted LePage’s Commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, Mary Mayhew, about the allegations. She declined to comment on the affidavit or the store or individuals in question, citing the open investigation. She did say that the state was on the lookout for patterns of fraud in the food stamp program.

“There are cases that have come to light in other states where there have been prosecutions that clearly demonstrate the kinds of criminal activity that does occur among retailers and certainly we have serious concerns about that level of activity occurring in the state of Maine,” Mayhew said.

Maine Public Radio decided to hold the story until federal charges were filed, an arrest was made, or other developments. Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, says there are no set rules about when journalists should or should not publicize an unsealed affidavit. She says news organizations should weigh a subject’s rights to due process, whether that is outweighed by the public good the publication would provide.

“And (there are) a lot of journalism organizations that would feel very comfortable reporting on an affidavit if they had the resources to do reporting on like parallel investigation so that they could reassure themselves that this has some merit,” McBride says.

Keith Shortall, Maine Public’s director of News and Public Affairs says that as a rule, the news outlet tries to show deference to the right to due process: It will not report on criminal allegations that have not resulted in charges or indictment.

“There are exceptions to that,” Shortall says. “One might be the public’s right to know, for example, if there is a public figure involved directly. We might also report further on it if we were able to verify for it ourselves some of the information that was in the affidavit.”

Shortall says Maine Public Radio did not have the resources to mount an independent investigation, thus the decision to wait for charges or other developments. It’s not clear whether other news organizations had the affidavit before “Lifezette” and LePage publicized it. The Bangor Daily News declined comment — although the newspaper’s statehouse reporter wrote that no one had ever quote, “approached” the Bangor Daily News about the story.

Portland Press Herald Managing Editor Steve Greenlee says it was not aware of the affidavit before the “Lifezette” story. But it judged the scale of the alleged fraud — in its hometown and being publicized by the governor, to be newsworthy. And within hours, the newspaper did publish an online account of the affidavit.

“It was already out there,” says Greenlee. “Other…some websites had reported this already. We did go down to the gentleman’s store to ask him if he was aware of the investigation, he confirmed he was aware of the investigation. He didn’t want to talk in detail about the investigation, but he was aware.”

Greenlee adds that the organization has in the past reported on affidavits that haven’t yet resulted in charges. Maine Public Radio’s Keith Shortall says it is doing so now as well, given that the names of the alleged perpetrators are now widely available in the Maine media and beyond.

The allegations in the request for a search warrant were levied against Ashraf Eldeknawey and Ali Daham. The affidavit by Assistant U.S. District Attorney James Chapman claims that there was probable cause to believe they participated in various frauds centered at the Ahram Market in Portland.

In a statement, a lawyer for Daham, Walter McKee, says his client is “adamant” that he has done nothing wrong and is looking forward to a full airing of the case. In an emailed statement late Tuesday, a lawyer for Eldeknawey, Leonard Sharon, questions the motivations behind the disclosure of the affidavit. He suggests the constitutional rights of the men named in the affidavit were being ignored for political gain. And he says they quote, “thought they had left that brand of justice in Iraq and Egypt where trials are often political sideshows where guilt is presumed.”

[For purposes of disclosure, Leonard Sharon is married to Maine Public Radio’s Deputy News Director, Susan Sharon. She recused herself from any discussions and decision-making related to the affidavit.]

A Columbia University graduate, Fred began his journalism career as a print reporter in Vermont, then came to Maine Public in 2001 as its political reporter, as well as serving as a host for a variety of Maine Public Radio and Maine Public Television programs. Fred later went on to become news director for New England Public Radio in Western Massachusetts and worked as a freelancer for National Public Radio and a number of regional public radio stations, including WBUR in Boston and NHPR in New Hampshire.