(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Minnesota government reportedly retaliated against whistleblowers who exposed a massive state fraud scheme.
The whistleblowers said they were denied vacations and promotions and that their official work was spied on, state Rep. Kristin Robbins told the New York Post.
Robbins, who chairs the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee and is running for governor, said she based her remarks on whistleblower testimony.
They said they were “electronically surveilled” shortly after stories about alleged Somali daycare fraud went viral, the Post reported.
They are sounding the alarm about alleged fraud in child daycares, adult daycare centers and autism centers.
“The group of whistleblowers that I interact with claim that they’ve been denied vacations, promotions, and that it’s hurt their careers,” Robbins said, as quoted by the Post.
“As recently as a couple of weeks ago they told me that every time [fraud] flares up [in the news] they can tell — two of them their job is in the IT world — can tell that they’re being surveilled on the computers in the department’s chat function for words like ‘fraud’ or ‘reporting’ and there’s sort of a chilling effect of knowing that they are looking for people who are talking about fraud,” Robbins added.
The Republican lawmaker said the allegations are extensive.
“It’s a really large group. When I meet with them it’s electronic and they’re all behind a screen and they have one person who is unidentified who then relays questions to the group,” she added.
Robbins said whistleblowers often call from blocked numbers.
“I just know to pick up when it’s a blocked number now. They’re very protective of themselves,” Robbins continued.
One whistleblower, Faye Bernstein, a former compliance officer at the Department of Human Services, was fired after reporting fraud in 2019, according to the Post and Fox9.
Scott Stillman, another DHS whistleblower, told local outlet MPR News that the daycare fraud was widespread in 2018.
