By prof HAKIZIMANA Maurice
MAIN,USA: Prosecutors say Happy House collected more than $60 million for false or inflated treatment claims and paid $5.5 million to a church. Major fraud charges carry mandatory prison time upon conviction.
II Follow us on Whatsapp https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCyM5ILdQejDYwQ2b2u II Follow us on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/professormaurice/.
Two men accused of collecting more than $60 million from Arizona’s Medicaid program for nonexistent or incomplete addiction and mental-health treatment face mandatory prison time if convicted of major fraud charges in a case that allegedly sent millions through a Phoenix-area church and onward to Rwanda.
Prosecutors allege Desire Rusingizwa and Fabrice Mvuyekure used Happy House Behavioral Health LLC to bill taxpayers for patients who were dead, incarcerated or hospitalized, among other false or excessive claims.
Prosecutors say Happy House collected more than $60 million for false or inflated treatment claims and paid $5.5 million to a church. Major fraud charges carry mandatory prison time upon conviction.
The 51-count indictment describes a referral operation involving 11 sober-living companies and alleges that Happy House paid $5.5 million to Hope of Life International Church. Its pastor, Theodore Mucuranyana, is accused of helping transfer more than $2 million to an unnamed entity in Rwanda.
The indictment was released last year, and the trials for more than 20 defendants implicated in the scheme have been ongoing throughout 2026. But, despite a nationwide firestorm over fraud in Minnesota, Maine, New York, and California, the alleged fraud scheme in Arizona has drawn little attention.
Twenty people, plus Happy House and Hope of Life International Church as entities, are defendants.
Hope of Life International Church serves primarily East African immigrants and conducts missionary outreach in Rwanda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The church offers sermons in both Kinyarwanda and English.
Mucuranyana, the head pastor of the church, has pleaded not guilty.
The church says it accepted a donation in good faith and knew nothing about fraud. The court proceedings thus far have not revealed the identity of the unknown entity in Rwanda that received more than $2 million in wire transfers from the church.
Prosecutors have now offered plea deals as the case moves toward trial assignments in January. A Sept. 14 court entry says discovery is “ongoing but mostly complete” and that the state has extended a plea offer to every co-defendant. Most defendants face a Jan. 26, 2027, trial assignment following another postponement.
The indictment alleges that, from August 2022 through July 2023, the company billed the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS, for clients who were dead, incarcerated or hospitalized. Other claims allegedly used incorrect billing codes or charged for excessive services.
You may also read: Emmanuel Abayisenga,a rwandan responsible for the fire at Nantes Cathedral, sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of Father Olivier Maire
The alleged referral arrangement supplied the patients needed to generate those claims. Sober-living operators directed residents to Happy House, sometimes requiring them to obtain services there, according to the indictment. Happy House billed Medicaid, then used the resulting payments to compensate the referring homes. Prosecutors charged participants with patient-referral offenses as well as fraud and money laundering.
The allegations extend beyond the treatment claims to what happened when the money arrived.
AHCCCS, the organization that administers the state’s Medicaid program, lists Happy House as suspended effective July 21, 2023.
The indictment alleges that Happy House issued two checks for $2,888,668 each on or about July 21, 2023: one to Mvuyekure and another to Julienne Desire. Three days later, it allegedly issued a $5 million check to Hope of Life. The church had already received a $500,000 check dated June 15, bringing the two alleged payments to $5.5 million.
Hope of Life describes itself as a ministry founded by Mucuranyana to reach people in the African diaspora who faced language barriers in other churches. Its website reports more than 500 active members, more than 1,000 online worshippers and outreach in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Prosecutors allege that the church became a conduit for proceeds from the Medicaid scheme.
In August 2023, according to the indictment, Hope of Life transferred $100,000 in earnest money and another $804,817.66 toward a property purchase in Tolleson, west of Phoenix. In December, the church, acting through Mucuranyana, allegedly wired $5,000 and then $2,000,100 to an entity in Rwanda. The indictment does not identify the recipient. It also alleges a separate $100,000 church transfer to co-defendant Edouard Nyandwi in January 2024.
The pastor faces four counts of second-degree money laundering, while the church faces six. The state alleges that the defendants knew or had reason to know the transactions involved criminal proceeds, though the church disputes that account.
Second-degree money laundering is a Class 3 felony.
In a statement reported when the charges were announced, Hope of Life said its relationship with the treatment business was that of a landlord and, later, a donation recipient. It said it had no access to the tenant’s internal operations, finances or management decisions.
Mucuranyana’s defense described the case as “egregious prosecutorial overreach.”
Rusingizwa’s lawyer, Shaheen Torgoley, likewise denied wrongdoing and said Happy House employees provided legitimate treatment for alcohol and substance-use disorders.
The prosecution is part of Arizona’s broader sober-living scandal, which harmed Native Americans seeking addiction treatment. The Associated Press reported when the Happy House charges were announced that fraudulent facilities elsewhere in the crackdown had left an unknown number of Native Americans homeless after losing their funding.
Alongside the criminal charges, Arizona is pursuing a civil forfeiture case that lists $62,470,674.50 in U.S. currency as property at issue. The docket names Rusingizwa, Mvuyekure and Hope of Life among the claimants.
The next scheduled criminal case-management proceedings are Sept. 22. More than three years after Medicaid suspended Happy House, the central allegations—how the company obtained the money, why millions went to a church and where the Rwanda transfers ultimately landed—remain unresolved in court.
Interestingly, the defendants in the case also have ties to Maine.
The Arizona court docket also records a judge granting permission for co-defendant Josiane Umutoni to travel to Maine in February 2026. The entry does not disclose the purpose of the trip.
Just months before prosecutors allege the Hope of Life church became involved with the Happy House network, the congregation heard a guest sermon from Pastor Peter Mutima of the Bethel Christian Center in Westbrook.
In addition to serving as the pastor at Bethel Christian Center, Mutima is the registered agent for Safe Residential Care.
Safe Residential Care, a Medicaid agency that provides residential care to adults with autism, billed MaineCare more than $124.6 million from 2018 to 2025.
Source: www.themainewire.com— Article originally written by By Steve Robinson on September 19, 2026 Updated on September 19, 2026. Steve Robinson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Maine Wire. He can be reached by email at Robinson@TheMaineWire.com.
This World
Mwalimu Hakizimana Maurice is a teacher, a translator-interpreter, and a writer based in Paris, France.
Professor Hakizimana Maurice is the author of the book “UTABA AMATEKA NTABONA ITAKA” (Editions Scribes).
PUB
TIDAS – Translation, Interpreting & Support for Your Asylum and Residency Procedures in France
Welcome to TIDAS (Translation, Interpreting, and Asylum & Residency Assistance in France).Our mission: to help foreigners in France overcome language barriers and administrative obstacles.
Our services:
Translation and interpreting for your appointments and documents
Support with asylum applications
Assistance with all your administrative procedures
With TIDAS, you benefit from a professional, caring, and reliable service.We believe that everyone deserves to be understood and supported.
Contact us today and let’s move forward together at (+33) 07 58 90 35 49 or email us at tidasetvous@gmail.com
TIDAS :
- “TIDAS – Always by Your Side”
- “The Voice of Foreigners in France”
- “Understand, Translate, Support”
