Representative Laurel Lee (R-FL) questioned former law enforcement officer Scott Dexter during a recent House Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee hearing on the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal.
Dexter, according to his testimony, was part of a team attached to the Minnesota Department of Human Services to investigate fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).
Rep. Lee began her line of questioning by emphasizing that "we need to return to a discussion of how these investigations were conducted and the type of evidence that led to the discovery of this massive fraud."
"One thing that is clear, based on the testimony today, is that this is not just a Minnesota problem," Rep. Lee argued. "This is a warning sign for every state that is administering large-scale programs using taxpayer dollars, and we need to get to the bottom of how to identify this type of fraud and prevent it from continuing to occur."
The Florida congresswoman questioned how Dexter conducted his investigation into the fraud. He replied that he and his team compiled a list of every facility receiving CCAP funds, examining billing patterns and the number of supposed children enrolled in each facility's program.
"So, in other words, you used objective data and evidence as the foundation to proceed further with your investigations?" Lee inquired. "And in your experience, wouldn't you also say that that is the typical method for beginning and analyzing a potential fraud case of any nature in any community?"
Dexter answered "yes" to both questions, noting that fraud investigations require sufficient evidence to warrant their initiation.
Lee asked why Dexter retired in 2019, as his testimony described. "Institutional and systemic barriers that prevented [him] from successfully moving these cases through prosecution," she commented.
Dexter answered that when his research indicated that the fraudulent daycare centers were run predominantly by Somalians, officials accused them of being racist and that "we wound up just simply reviewing attendance records and matching them up with billing. There really was not a lot of substantial investigation anymore, and most of our cases wound up going before administrative hearings rather than criminal."
