Last week, a federal grand jury indicted four Maine home health agency managers for holding down the salaries of personal support specialists in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This felony indictment Documents filed in the U.S. District Court for Maine allege that managers — Faysal Kalayaf Manahe, Yaser Aali, Ammar Alkinani and Quasim Saesah — conspired to hold down wages and limit the movement of essential workers by agreeing to fix workers’ wages without hiring them sex. Workers from each other’s companies, April 2020.

“(Personal Support Specialist) workers and other essential workers risked health care for others at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said in a statement. said the press release. “The indictment in this case alleges that the employers of these workers colluded to deny them the opportunity to earn higher wages.”

The indictment does not list the name of the company run by the managers, but State licensing records show Ocean Home Health in Portland and Kennebec Home Health in Augusta are owned by Alkinani and Saesah, respectively. Managers at the facilities could not be immediately reached for comment.

The indictment said managers agreed to pay workers $15 to $16 an hour and forced other operators of home health agencies to do the same, threatening to report other managers to Maine’s Medicaid program MaineCare. The indictment states that in March 2020, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services increased the reimbursement rate for home health agencies from $20.52 an hour to $26.20 an hour to allow them to give workers a raise.

“In the early days of the pandemic, the State of Maine provided additional resources to ensure that seniors continue to receive in-home care and that personal protective equipment is affordable for essential workers,” said U.S. Attorney Darcy Mack for the District of Maine. Elway said at a news conference.

The charges against four home health managers are part of a larger Justice Department investigation into wage fixing in the home health industry.

The maximum penalty for conspiracy to restrict trade is 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine, which can be increased based on the financial gain or loss caused by the crime, the indictment said.