Former Bonny Eagle High School Student Accused of Raping 15-year-old in School Bathroom
Ali Kareem Al Shammari, 19, of Buxton, was arrested in late February of this year on two counts of gross sexual assault and was booked at the Cumberland County Jail.
Edward TomicBy Edward TomicMarch 24, 2025Updated:March 24, 20251 Comment4 Mins Read
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A former student at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish is facing two counts of gross sexual assault for allegedly raping a 15-year-old victim in the school bathroom.
Ali Kareem Al Shammari, 19, of Buxton, was arrested in late February of this year on two counts of gross sexual assault and was booked at the Cumberland County Jail.
Arrest records from Buxton Police indicate that Al Shammari was taken into custody on a warrant shortly before 5 p.m. on Feb. 19 near his residence on Albert Circle in Buxton.
Shammari was released from the jail on Feb. 25 on $2,500 cash bail, under conditions that he not enter Bonny Eagle High School and have no direct or indirect contact with the minor victim.
Charging documents indicate that Al Shammari is accused of engaging in a sexual act with a minor victim who submitted out of compulsion on or about Sept. 9, 2024 — over five months before his February arrest — in Standish, resulting in one count of Class A gross sexual assault.
Class A offenses in Maine are punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.
At the time of the alleged assault, the minor victim was 15 years old, and Shammari was 18 years old.
Court records show that the minor victim conducted a video interview at a Maine Children’s Advocacy Center regarding the alleged sexual assault on Nov. 19, 2024.
Shammari is also charged with Class C gross sexual assault, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, with prosecutors alleging that Shammari was “criminally negligent with regard to whether the minor had consented” to the sexual act.
Social media posts about the case have alleged that the assault occurred in a bathroom at Bonny Eagle High School.
Court records do not state exactly where the alleged assault occurred, only that it occurred in Standish, and that Shammari was released under conditions not to enter Bonny Eagle High School.
Superintendent of Bonny Eagle School District (MSAD 6) Clay Gleason told the Maine Wire on Monday that the district is “aware of the social media reports and concerns shared.”
Gleason confirmed that Shammari is a former student and that he no longer attends Bonny Eagle High School.
“The law does not permit us to discuss student matters, and so we are not able to offer any information about these allegations or this specific individual,” Gleason wrote in a Monday email.
“However, I can generally share that when student concerns are brought to our attention, we work to get the facts in a timely manner and offer supports to the families involved,” Gleason wrote. “When we identify a violation of our code of conduct, we take prompt action to address the conduct including working with law enforcement as necessary. The safety of our students is and will continue to be paramount priority.”
Gleason said there has been no communication to the community about the sexual assault “out of respect for the privacy of the students involved.”
At a meeting of the MSAD 6 Board of Directors on Sept. 30, 2024 — roughly three weeks after the date the sexual assault allegedly occurred — the board moved into executive session for just over an hour to conduct a student disciplinary hearing, after which the board voted unanimously to expel the student in question (referred to only as “Student A”).
According to a Bonny Eagle School District letter dated Nov. 7, 2024 obtained by the Maine Wire, the district conducted a Title IX investigation into Ali Al Shammari for allegedly “Sexually assaulting [minor victim] in a bathroom at Bonny Eagle High School,” and for “Unwanted sexual contact (kissing) [victim] in the hallway in early September,” after a complaint was filed with the district on Oct. 24, 2024.
The district’s investigation found that Shammari “did engage in conduct that constituted sex-based harassment in violation of Title IX and MSAD 6 Policy ACAA,” — the district policy regarding harassment and sexual harassment of students, the letter states.
Shammari has a hearing before the Cumberland County Superior Court scheduled for June 17.
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/former-bonny-eagle-high-school-student-accused-of-raping-15-year-old-in-school-bathroom/
>https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/former-bonny-eagle-high-school-student-accused-of-raping-15-year-old-in-school-bathroom/
Somali-American Received Millions in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars, MaineCare Funding While Claiming to Bankroll Jubaland Militia
Edward Tomic and Steve Robinson contributed to this report
Maine Wire StaffBy Maine Wire StaffMarch 21, 2025Updated:March 21,
Somali-American Abdullahi Ali has had a prolific life since arriving in Lewiston, Maine as a refugee in 2009.
Ali has become a U.S. citizen,started a nonprofitto help fellow immigrants, started several businesses, includinga multi-million dollar MaineCare-funded migrant services agency, and even — according to an interview he gave to Kenyan media — managed__ to raise money in the U.S. to buy weapons, munitions, and supplies for a paramilitary force he had hoped to lead__ as president of Jubaland, Somalia.
But his knack for running a celebrated migrant agency out of Portland didn’t translate into electoral success last November when he failed to win the convoluted and disputed presidential race in Jubaland.
In an an interview with Kenyan media, Ali had previously boasted of his efforts to raise funds for para-military forces in Somalia, forces he hoped would back his claim to power should he win the presidential election.
“When I was in the U.S., I contributed to the financial support for the Jubaland-Somali army. To help the troops buy weapons, bullets and food,” said Ali.
“I helped pay my share of the fund,” he said.
At the same time Ali was helping finance arms deals in Somalia, he was also serving as the executive director and nominal head ofGateway Community Services, LLC and Gateway Community Services, Maine.
Ali’s taxpayer funding, political connections, and boasts about funding Somali arms deals raise questions about whether U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved in paying for paramilitary activities aimed at influencing Somali elections, as well as whether Ali acted as an unregistered foreign agent while receiving millions in taxpayer dollars.
According to records obtained via the Freedom of Access Act, Gateway Community Services, LLC received$28.8 million in payments via MaineCare, Maine’s version of Medicaid,from 2019 through 2024, including $4.1 million last year, while Ali was running for office with his militia in Somalia.
In April 2020, the LLC received $693,382 in taxpayer dollars under the Paycheck Protection Program, funding that allegedly backstopped 127 full-time jobs.
Other documents show that Gateway, while it wasbeing run by Ali and Assistant Executive Director Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland),owed a debt to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services of nearly $800,000 due to improper payments the company received under MaineCare. According to a March 2022 letter to Ali, a sample audit of reimbursement claims Gateway filed with MaineCare found a 36 percent error rate, resulting in Gateway receiving an estimated $903,938.95 in improperly paid taxpayer dollars.
It’s unclear from the letter whether that debt was ever settled.
According to public tax records, Gateway Community Services (the nonprofit, rather than the similarly named for-profit LLC) earned just over $1.5 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023, with $1.3 million of that revenue being from government grants. That represented a significant increase in taxpayer funding for the non-profit, which received just $135,561 in 2019 and $488,531 in 2020, according to tax documents.
>Somali-American Received Millions in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars, MaineCare Funding While Claiming to Bankroll Jubaland Militia
Ali, in his role as executive director of the nonprofit arm of Gateway, took compensation of $12,825.
State Rep. Dhalac, a member of the State Legislature’s powerful appropriations committee, served as assistant executive director at Gatewayat the same time DHHS’ Program Integrity unit was attempting to recoup nearly $800k in improperly billed claims. According to financial disclosures Dhalac has filed with the Maine Ethics Commission, she listed her employer as “Gateway Community Services” in 2021, 2022, and 2023. However, her 2024 disclosure lists only “Cross Cultural Community Services,” an entity from which she reported self-employment income in the three years she served as assistant executive director at Gateway.
The non-profit arm of Gateway has also come under legal and media scrutiny in recent years. According to a Jan. 2022 report from the Portland Press Herald, Abdullahi and Gateway were implicated in a federal investigation into wage fixing among migrant-run health care agencies, though Abdullahi denied any knowledge of the conspiracy.
According to one of the defendants in that case, Ali, who was never named as a defendant and was never indicted, was the person who drafted the agreement. When the Press Herald reported questioned Ali about this, the reporter said he hung up the phone.
Although Dhalac appears to no longer work for Ali at Gateway, the pair appear to remain close.Both Dhalac and Ali accompanied Office of New Americans Director Tarlan Ahmadov on a controversial junket to Azerbaijan, paid for by the government of Azerbaijan.
Neither Dhalac nor Ali have responded to inquiries about the trip to Azerbaijan.
Ali and Dhalac have also ignored questioned about whether U.S. tax dollars were used to finance Ali’s support for Somali arms, munitions, and para-military troops.
A search of U.S. Justice Department records for the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) does not show any indication that Ali ever registered as a foreign agent during the time when he claimed to have raised money in the U.S. for the benefit of Somali para-military groups.
When the Maine Wire began making inquiries to Ali about Gateway Community Services and his claim to have funded arms deals in Somalia,Ali deleted his personal Facebook page and his LinkedIn account.
However, his “Dr. Abdullahi Ali for President, Jubaland State, Somalia” Facebook page remains active and continues to document his international exploits, including his March 8 visit to the Saudi embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and his Jan. 16 meeting with the Pakistani Ambassador to Ethiopia, Atif Sharif.
Jubaland’s November 2024 Election
Despite his success moving from refugee to successful owner of a multi-million dollar social services agency, Abdullahi Ali proved a poor candidate for office in Jubaland. In Nov. 2024, he lost the election, though the results have been disputed by various parties, including Ali.
Jubaland is a semi-autonomous state located in southern Somali, and the Jubaland-Somali Army that Ali has helped fund from within the U.S. often works in coordination with the Somali National Army (SNA) to defend the region from Islamic terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab.
However, tensions often arise between the central Somali government in Mogadishu and the government of Jubaland over how power should be delegated between the two levels of the federal system, especially when it comes to control over the lucrative port city of Kismayo, where Ali was born. The federal government has also clashed with state governments over plans to move to more democratic “one person, one vote” systems as opposed to the current system where only clan elders vote and winning candidates must fund militias in order to claim victory.
Leadership in Mogadishu has also questioned the legitimacy of Jubaland’s current president, Ahmed Mohamed Madobe, who has been in power since 2013, the year Jubaland was formed. Madobe was supposed to be term-limited out last year, hence Ali’s campaign for office. But the incumbent candidate re-wrote the constitution to allow him to remain in office, leading to Jubaland holding two separate presidential elections, with the national government questioning the legitimacy of each.
To put it into American terms, it would be like Gov. Janet Mills rewriting the Maine constitution to run for a third term and holding her own election, while Shawn Moody and Rick Bennett held a separate election. Then, President Donald Trump sent in the military, while Bennett and Moody each commanded paramilitary forces of their own.
Ali contested the changes Madobe made in the summer of 2024 that allowed him to run again for the presidency of Jubaland and, in a series of videos posted to social media, he denied the legitimacy of Madobe’s apparent victory in the November election.
Although Ali has spoken positively about his time in Maine and the United States,he has joined other Somali refugees in Minnesota and dedicated time and resources to heavy involvement with politics in his native country.
In June, Ali traveled to Minneapolis to hold a political event with Somali politicians from Minnesota, another state that has a large Somali diaspora population, to announce his candidacy for president of Jubaland.
Images published to social media as part of Ali’s candidacy show him walking with multiple men dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying what appear to be AK-47s. Other photos published on his campaign account show what appears to be an armed convoy.
Ali did not succeed in his Jubaland presidential bid and his attempts to contest the results of the election were not successful. However, questions remain about exactly how he managed to finance both his political operation, extensive travel, and the arms and soldiers backing his militia.
In addition to legitimacy and broad suffrage, Jubaland’s elections also lack campaign finance disclosures, so there’s no available record — other than Ali’s public comments — to indicate precisely how his campaign and militia were funded.
Ali did not respond to an email asking how managed to finance his armed para-military group.
Business Records and COVID-Era Grants
A review of Ali’s business records, as well as records related to his associates, suggests a web of businesses and non-profits that have either failed to take off or operated under the radar. In addition, some businesses operating out of his 501 Forest Ave location in Portland have connections back to Minnesota.
In addition to Gateway, Ali has formed several for profit ventures, including Gateway Communications and Financial Services LLC in 2018, Boundless Media LLC in 2020, Thinkdelivery, LLC in 2018, and Laafyo Consulting LLC in 2023.
According to federal records, only Gateway Community Services LLC was approved for a $687,500 PPP loan on April 11, 2020, a loan that was forgiven in Feb. 2021.
The federal records indicate that the loan helped save 127 jobs in the “All Other Miscellaneous Ambulatory Health Care Services” industry.
Similarly, Ali’s nonprofit — Gateway Community Services, Maine — was approved for a smaller $11,200 PPP loan on May 4, 2020, which was forgiven in May 2021. The low amount of the loan for the non-profit is odd, considering the non-profit arm of Gateway reported paying $527k in salaries and wages in 2021.
Thinkdelivery LLC, a shipping and courier company, was previously known as Deliveryplus LLC.
Most of these businesses operate out of 501 Forest Ave in Portland. One other business also shares that office address: Language Access Providers LLC, a translation service provider operated by Abdifatah Afrah, who also worked for more than two years at Gateway.
Although Language Access Providers LLC boasts of “serving the immigrant communities of Maine and beyond since 2017,” the company’s website lists three team members, Meet Nouf, First Name Last Name, and First Name Last Name — suggesting the company either has no team or has yet to complete its “Team” section.
Afrah appears to have significant connections back to Minnesota, where he has been involved with other health care, transportation, immigrant services and housing firms.
For example, Unity House Living L.L.C., formed in Oct. 2023 in Minnesota, list Abdifatah J. Afrah as a director, but lists a mailing address at 46 Tall Pines Dr. Apt 4, Lewiston, ME.
Gateway Community Services was awarded a$363,000 grant from the Maine DHHS under their “COVID-19 Vaccine Equity” initiative.
Gateway was among a multitude of immigrant services nonprofit organizations that received hundreds of thousands of dollars under the initiative:
Maine Access Immigrant Network: $181,000
Maine Association For New Americans: $363,000
Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services: $470,300
Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition: $689,000
New Mainer’s Public Health Initiative: $330,500
According to Maine DHHS, the grants were awarded specifically to prioritize agencies that can provide services in languages other than English.
State Audits Show Gateway Community Services Overbilled MaineCare
Documents from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) show that under the leadership of Abdullahi Ali and Deqa Dhalac, Gateway Community Services came under scrutiny and underwent multiple audits for significantover-billing of the taxpayer-funded MaineCare program.
According a review of the audit findings, including the case level overpayment information, many of the improperly billed services included translation services Gateway couldn’t prove were actually provided.
The documents show that Gateway was cited for overpayments totaling nearly $1.1 million across two audit periods, with a third review reducing one of these amounts after appeal.
The first audit, covering Nov. 1, 2015, to Oct. 14, 2016, was detailed in a Notice of Violation (NOV) dated November 7, 2017. The DHHS Program Integrity Unit reviewed 240 randomly selected claims out of 3,795 submitted by Gateway, focusing on services like interpreter assistance, community integration, comprehensive assessments, and behavioral health counseling.
Findings from the DHHS included missing or incomplete documentation, such as unsigned assessments and individual service plans, late-signed progress notes, and billing for non-covered services like translating mail or vocational support.
The audit initially identified an overpayment of roughly $171,000, calculated from a 35.36% error rate applied to $564,068 in total claims, adjusted downward to account for sampling variability.
Gateway appealed this finding, triggering an informal review. On July 23, 2018, DHHS issued a Final Informal Review Decision, reducing the overpayment to just over $125,000 after accepting additional documentation for 21 claim lines.
However, issues persisted with interpreter services, where Gateway billed MaineCare $80 per hour despite paying interpreters $40, exceeding the customary rate allowed under MaineCare policy.
A second audit, spanning Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2018, resulted in a much larger overpayment claim. The NOV, dated March 22, 2022, examined 244 of 275 randomly selected claims from a universe of 20,932, covering interpreter services, targeted case management, and outpatient therapy.
Issues mirrored the earlier audit: missing or inadequate documentation, non-covered services like transportation or reading mail, and discrepancies in billing times.
The review found a 35.64% error rate, applied to $2,536,140.04 in total payments, yielding a preliminary overpayment of $903,938.95. Adjusted downward by $127,916.74, the final demand was about $776,000.
Gateway, State Representative Deqa Dhalac and the Office of New Americans
Rep. Dhalac, herself an immigrant to the U.S. from Somalia, worked as the assistant executive director of Ali’s Gateway Community Services until at least 2023.
Dhalac was reelected to her second term representing House District 120 last November, and holds a key position on the Maine Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, responsible for overseeing the state’s budget and fiscal policies.
A May 2022 Facebook post by Gateway Community Services announced her hiring to the position, stating that Dhalac would be “leading the strategic planning, board engagement, community-wide planning and partnership building for the organization.”
It appears as though Dhalac no longer works at Gateway, as her most recent state legislator income disclosure form no longer lists her position at the organization.
Dhalac is also the co-founder of the Portland-based Cross Cultural Community Services, a DEI consulting nonprofit, and is the vice president of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, representing a network of over 100 immigrant advocacy groups.
Dhalac also spearheaded the standalone bill to form Gov. Janet Mills’Office of New Americans,the state migrant resettlement office. Although that legislation failed to pass, funding for the office was included in the budget passed at the end of the last legislative session.
Ekhlas Ahmed, who was recently appointed by Gov. Janet Mills as a policy analyst within the Maine Office of New Americans (ONA), was featured as a community health worker for Gateway Community Services in a 2021 testimonial video published by the nonprofit
Ahmed, who resettled in Maine through Catholic Charities after fleeing the civil war in Sudan in 2005, said in an April 2024 interview that she vows to “fight for Sudan” with all her capacities and advocated against the assimilation of immigrants.
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/somali-american-received-millions-in-u-s-taxpayer-dollars-mainecare-funding-while-claiming-to-bankroll-jubaland-militia/
The Sinister Side of Tarlan Ahmadov’s Shusha Junket
Displaced Armenians didn't make it onto the agenda
Maine Wire StaffBy Maine Wire StaffMarch 5, 2025Updated:March 6, 202517 Comments5 Mins Read3K Views
Just what were they thinking?
When three Maine legislators agreed to go on junket to Azerbaijan last year with former Maine Department of Labor official and current director of Governor Janet Mills’ Office of New Americans Tarlan Ahmadov, did it occur to Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland), Rep. Mana Abdi (D-Lewiston) and Sen Jill Duson (D-Cumberland) that something about the trip was just plain fishy?
“Our visit to Shusha was unforgettable for me,” Rep. Dhalac told state-controlled Azeri media last spring, adding: “I especially want to talk about the restoration and reconstruction works carried out by the Azerbaijani government in Shusha, Lachin, and other liberated territories over the past 4 years. Of course, the government is doing its best for the return of internally displaced persons to their homes as soon as possible.”
Shusha is located in the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan occupied in 2020, while the rest of the world was locked down for the COVID-19 pandemic.The ethnic Armenians who lived there prior to the military operation have since become refugees.
Cursory research would have shown that an all-expense paid trip to Azerbaijan and its conquered territories was at best suspect and more likely just a bad idea for any public servant mindful of propriety and balance. Social media was just one area where the Azeri regime had been literally buying off influencersto legitimize its military seizure of Shusha and forcible displacement of over 100,000 of its long-time residents.
Instead of reading about Shusha in Foeder’s or the The Lonely Planet, a prospective visitor needs to visit the site Dark Tourism to get the tourist’s low-down on the place. That in itself might have been a clue.
In the years prior to Ahmadov’s leading a delegation of Maine state lawmakers to tour Azerbaijan’s war-time gains in the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the country whose president awarded him a special honor lavished $7 million on lobbying in Washington, D.C. in what experts have called a fling of “caviar diplomacy.”
Yet this sum may only scratch the surface. In a 2023 report, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft stated:
“All of this is just what’s publicly known about Azerbaijan’s influence in America which, given Azerbaijan’s history, is likely just the tip of the iceberg. As the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has painstakingly documented, the Azerbaijan government has a history of laundering its influence in Europe and the United States.”
>The Sinister Side of Tarlan Ahmadov’s Shusha Junket
[RELATED: Did Janet Mills Hire an Unregistered Foreign Agent to Run Maine’s New Migrant Office?]
The OCCRP report details how an “Azerbaijan Laundromat” operated out of shell companies in the United Kingdom, laundering at least $3 billion. How precisely this ties to the source of funds behind the Fund for the Azeri Diaspora is murky at best, but the availability of such research might have given a conscientious individual pause before signing up on such a trip.
To give Sen. Duson the benefit of the doubt, the new phenomenon of “green-washing” was not fully understood before the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, became the host of the COP 29, or United Nations conference on cutting carbon emissions (the previous year, 2023, COP 28 was hosted by oil-rich Dubai). Yet the tendency of kleptocratic, anti-democratic regimes to hold conferences on the climate and “green energy revolutions” is now beginning to show itself for what it is.
According to state-controlled Azeri media, Duson expressed interest in potential cooperation in the design and construction of a solar power station in Azerbaijan.
But there’s nothing new about Azerbaijan’s “shadow influence” tactics in Washington. According to a report ten years ago by an independent Azeri news agency, Azerbaijan was already one of the ten top spenders on lobbyists among foreign countries attempting to wield influence with American officials — and this only accounted for officially-declared spending.
Political travel to Azerbaijan has been a fraught exercise ever since Barack Obama strategist David Plouffe embarrassed the Obama administration in 2009 by getting caught taking a $50,000 honorarium for giving a speech in Baku and ended up donating his fee to the National Democratic Institute.
In 2018, a Turkish-American businessman was indicted on four counts of lying to the House Ethics Committee about the sources of funding for trips he had organized via the so-called Turquoise Council of Eurasian and Americans that brought members of Congress and their staff to Azerbaijan. According to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the actual source of funds was the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), which is owned by the Azeri government.
The same source of funds is cited in the more recent indictment of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who has been charged by federal prosecutors last year for taking $600,000 in bribes from Azeri official and acting as a foreign agent on Azerbaijan’s behalf.
Cuellar’s indictment coincided with the Ahmadov-led Maine delegation’s visit to Azerbaijan and Azeri-seized territories.
Four months after the Maine junket, a multinational association of NGOs allied to prevent torture appealed to the European Commission to take action against Azerbaijan’s “unprecedented” repressions and stated in their letter that “almost no independent civil society actor remains free in the country.”
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/the-sinister-side-of-tarlan-ahmadovs-shusha-junket/
>[RELATED: Did Janet Mills Hire an Unregistered Foreign Agent to Run Maine’s New Migrant Office?]
Did Janet Mills Hire an Unregistered Foreign Agent to Run Maine’s New Migrant Office?
The Maine WireBy The Maine WireFebruary 26, 2025Updated:March 10, 202527 Comments6 Mins Read5K Views
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The Maine Wire’s Steve Robinson and Edward Tomic contributed to this story.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland) created the controversial “Office of New Americans” (ONA) last year as part of the governor’s plan to bring 75,000 new workers to Maine over a five-year period.
On Dec. 18, Gov. Mills tapped former Catholic Charities and Department of Labor migrant resettlement coordinator Tarlan R. Ahmadov, 53, of Falmouth to be director of the ONA.
Since Ahmadov’s appointment, details of his checkered past, including anti-Armenian social media posts and political advocacy, have led some in Maine’s migrant community to call for for Ahmadov to resign or be replaced.
Among those calling for Ahmadov’s ouster is Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte, an Armenian-American refugee who alleged in a Feb. 22 letter to Mills that Ahmadov not only has a track record of casting negative aspersions on Armenians, but he also served as a foreign agent as recently as last year.
In her letter, Turcotte flagged an anti-Armenian proclamation Ahmadov attempted to push through the Portland City Council — a resolution that was withdrawn once members of the Armenian community informed then-Mayor Kate Snyder that the resolution was “full of historical inaccuracies and lies.”
Turcotte then refers to an international trip that Ahmadov spearheaded last year involving several Maine elected officials.
“Most recently, in 2024, Ahmadov acted as an agent of the government of Azerbaijan, arranging for [a] Maine senator, representative, a judge and other authorities, to accept a lavish trip to Azerbaijan from this foreign government, where they were wined and dined in an area just recently emptied of its Armenian inhabitants, our churches destroyed, our cemeteries leveled, and where they blithely filmed propaganda for this authoritarian regime,” Turcotte said in her letter.
Notably, Turcotte alleged that Ahmadov was acting as a foreign agent for the government of Azerbaijan when he arranged the luxury junket. If that’s true, the U.S. law would have required Ahmadov to register as a foreign agent and provide details about his work for a foreign government.
Under the federal Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), anyone acting on behalf of a foreign regime — whether in Washington, DC or at the state and local level — must register as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice.
However, the national FARA database does not include any listings related to Ahmadov, prompting the question of whether he illegally acted as an agent of a foreign government while arranging the junket presumably on behalf of and clearly to the benefit of the Azeri government.
Gerard Kiladjian, president of the Armenian Cultural Association of Maine, made a similar claim about Ahmadov’s foreign agent status in his letter to Gov. Mills requesting Ahmadov’s resignation.
“Mr. Ahmadov personally facilitated and participated in a fully paid trip for several Maine legislators to Azerbaijan, where he acted as a government agent, arranging meetings with Azerbaijani officials,” Kiladjian said.
If Ahmadov was working on behalf of a foreign government and did not register with FARA, as appears to the be the case, he could have violated FARA.
FARA violations vary in severity according to the circumstance of the violation, but “Acting as an Unregistered Foreign Agent” without informing the U.S. Attorney General is a crime that could earn an individual up to ten years in prison under 18 U.S.C. § 951.
However, Attorney General Pam Bondi has recently issued a memorandum deprioritizing FARA violations from an enforcement perspective.
The Maine politicians who joined Ahmadov on the trip, in addition to Rep. Dhalac, were Sen. Jill Duson (D-Cumberland), Rep. Mana Abdi (D-Lewiston), and Cumberland County Probate Judge Paul Aronson.
Dhalac, Duson, and Abdi all listed the trip on their financial disclosures, with the payor described as “Fund to Support Azerbaijan Diaspora” or “Fund for Support Azerbaijan Diaspora.”
According to websites managed by the government of Azerbaijan, the Fund is directly managed by the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which is in turn under the direct oversight of the government of Azerbaijan.
In other words, the disclosures reveal that the government Azerbaijan paid for three Maine elected Democrats and a probate judge to have a luxury trip to Azerbaijan.
>Did Janet Mills Hire an Unregistered Foreign Agent to Run Maine’s New Migrant Office?
Ahmadov has not responded to an email requesting information about his relationship with the government of Azerbaijan. The various iterations of his public biography available on government websites, including a press release issued by the Mills Administration touting his appointment to head ONA, never mentions any work as a foreign agent.
The Mills Administration has not responded to an email asking about their vetting process prior to hiring Ahmadov to run the migrant resettlement office as well as the calls for him to resign.
Ahmadov is the founder and director of the Azerbaijan Society of Maine, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is part of a network of Azeri diaspora groups, the Congress of Azerbaijani Societies of America (CASA).
In early 2024, Ahmadov was awarded a medal by the President of Azerbaijan and the Azeri State Committee on Work with Diaspora “For service in Diaspora activity.”
In 2020, Ahmadov was one of 19 representatives of U.S.-based Azeri diaspora organizations under CASA that signed onto a letter asking the U.S. Congress to reject a proposed House Resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
That letter included a “fact sheet” regarding the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan from the Azeri Embassy to Washington, D.C. — disseminating information directly from the government of Azerbaijan.
Also a signatory on that letter was Irada Akhoundova, of the Azerbaijan Center and Houston-Baku Sister Cities Association in Houston, Texas.
Akhoundova pleaded guilty in May 2024 to one count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Azerbaijan, in connection with an investigation into Texas Democratic Congressman Rep. Henry Cuellar.
The Maine Wire has asked the Mills Administration, the Maine Ethics Commission, Ahmadov, and the politicians who attended the junket several questions about the trip, disclosure requirements, and Ahmadov’s past activism against Armenian interests.
According to Facebook posts by various participants on the trip, the delegation visited and toured the Nagorno-Karabakh region that was invaded by the Azerbaijan military, causing the mass displacement and exodus of the majority Armenian population.
In 2023, following a military offensive by the Azerbaijan military, an estimated 100,000 Armenians fled the region, leading Armenian and human rights organizations to describe the government’s actions as ethnic cleansing.
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/02/did-janet-mills-hire-an-unregistered-foreign-agent-to-run-maines-new-migrant-office/
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>>5853115
MEMEmisspelledbut drives the point across.
Q
60 Minutes
Clock Activated
>missing o
963
Q !xowAT4Z3VQ03/23/2018 13:14:06 ID:
8chan/greatawakening: 461
Clock activated.
RED_CASTLE.
GREEN_CASTLE.
Stage_5:5[y]
Q
>>22812851 pb
>DOUGH
>‘Nazis’ in Ukraine ‘nurtured’ by Europeans – Lavrov
>23andMe files for bankruptcy, Anne Wojcicki steps down as CEO
14
Anonymous 10/31/2017 23:00:15 ID: grTMpzrL
4chan/pol: 147433975
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SCI[F]
Military Intelligence.
What is 'State Secrets' and how upheld in the SC?
What must be completed to engage MI over other (3) letter agencies?
What must occur to allow for civilian trials?
Why is this relevant?
What was Flynn's background?
Why is this relevant?
Why did Adm R (NSA) meet Trump privately w/o auth?
Does POTUS know where the bodies are buried?
Does POTUS have the goods on most bad actors?
Was TRUMP asked to run for President?
Why?
By Who?
Was HRC next in line?
Was the election suppose to be rigged?
Did good people prevent the rigging?
Why did POTUS form a panel to investigate?
Has POTUS ever made a statement that did not become proven as true/fact?
What is POTUS in control of?
What is the one organization left that isn't corrupt?
Why does the military play such a vital role?
Why is POTUS surrounded by highly respected generals?
Who guards former Presidents?
Why is that relevant?
Who guards HRC?
Why is ANTIFA allowed to operate?
Why hasn't the MB been classified as a terrorist org?
What happens if Soros funded operations get violent and engage in domestic terrorism?
What happens if mayors/ police comms/chiefs do not enforce the law?
What authority does POTUS have specifically over the Marines?
Why is this important?
What is Mueller's background? Military?
Was Trump asked to run for President w/ assurances made to prevent tampering?
How is POTUS always 5-steps ahead?
Who is helping POTUS?
>Clock activated.
Potus during cabinet meeting: "I did getactivated"
>60 Minutes
>Clock Activated
>60 Minutes
>Clock Activated
>60 Minutes
>Clock Activated
>Potus during cabinet meeting: "I did getactivated"
>10:10AM = Q1010
>5:5
>o7
Green Castle
Red Castle
>missing o
>MEMEmisspelledbut drives the point across.
PBsin there