Six people and South Portland-based Community Home Health Care LLC pleaded not guilty Oct. 27 to federal charges alleging they conspired to bill MaineCare for personal care services that were not provided.
The 10-page indictment, filed Oct. 22 and unsealed Oct. 27, charges the company, Noora Abd, Faysal Kalayaf Manahe, Adel Al Rashid, Sura Almohammed, Ethar Alyaseen and Mohammed Alkhalaf with conspiring to commit health care fraud.
Abd and Manahe also face a charge of obstructing a criminal investigation of health care offenses. Alkhalaf is charged with making false statements to the FBI.
What prosecutors allege
MaineCare is Maine's Medicaid program, funded by the state and federal governments. It pays for authorized personal care, including assistance with daily tasks such as bathing, dressing and eating.
The indictment describes an electronic system used to record the worker, location and time of a care visit. MaineCare policy required a matching visit record before paying a claim. Prosecutors allege the defendants shared login information to create false entries supporting bills for care that had not occurred.
According to the indictment, the company and Abd submitted claims since 2020 for care purportedly provided to one client. MaineCare paid the company more than $600,000 on those claims and later reversed about $35,000. The indictment does not say how much of that total was for care that was not provided, and it does not establish a loss amount.
The indictment alleges Abd owned and operated the company and the other defendants worked for it. It accuses Abd and Manahe of encouraging a person with information about the alleged billing not to speak with law enforcement and instructing that person to give investigators false information after the two learned of the investigation on or about June 23, 2026.
The court record
Court entries for Oct. 27 record not-guilty pleas for all six people and the company before U.S. Magistrate Judge John C. Nivison in Bangor. Abd entered the company's plea.
Nivison denied prosecutors' detention motions for five defendants; prosecutors withdrew the motion for Almohammed. The court entries record release on conditions for the six individuals. Alyaseen's release was conditioned on the clerk's office receiving his passport, which the docket shows was surrendered Oct. 27.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. The defendants are presumed innocent unless prosecutors prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
An amended Oct. 28 order schedules trial for Dec. 3 before Woodcock and sets Nov. 10 as the deadline for pretrial motions.
Alyaseen's lawyer responds
Jon Goodman, who represents Alyaseen, said in an Oct. 28 statement to Six State Signal that his client "has committed no crime, and we look forward to an impartial jury clearing his name."
Goodman also criticized the government's effort to keep his client in custody.
Requests for comment sent Oct. 28 for the other five people and the company had not produced responses as of Oct. 29.