Thread by @brianalmon

Since we're looking into potential daycare fraud...

Umoja Child Care (or Umoji Daycare) opened in Boise in 2019. According to Transparent Idaho, owner/operator Silvie Mwenematale has received more than $750K in welfare since 2019.

🧵

Here is a sampling of payments to Mwenematale:

I fed the full CSV export into ChatGPT and it noticed that payments escalated from start to finish, ending up at around $30K per month. That's odd, to say the least.

Mwenematale was twice charged in 2023 with allowing an unlicensed person to watch children at her facility.

Umoja had its participation in the Idaho Child Care Program terminated in 2023 for "concerns of non compliance".

Could those events be related?

Umoja's website and Facebook page have not been updated in a while. Here, it says it ONLY accepts ICCP payments:

The second time Mwenematale was charged with allowing an unlicensed person to be with a child, she retained a lawyer - Dalia Pedro Trujillo - who appears to work with refugees and potentially illegal aliens.

Silvie pled guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 16 hours community service. It appears that she required an interpreter during her hearing.

The daycare LLC was terminated earlier this year for lack of an annual report, around the same time that a collections agency was granted a default judgment against Mwenematale for a suit for $12K in unpaid debts.

Did Silvie leave the country?

Mwenematale also received funds from at least one nonprofit in 2024; $1,850 from the Krazy Coupon Lady Foundation, which distributes money to refugees in the Boise area.

Mwenematale's address is a house owned by Bellancine Mukeshimana, who is also listed as the operator of Bella Day Care in Boise. That facility appears to have no online presence.

What does all this mean? I don't know yet. But I suspect that what we've seen in Minnesota has likely played out throughout the nation, including in Idaho. Anywhere there is money available we'll find people scheming to get it.