Does a viral Craigslist post prove that owners of a Minnesota daycare accused of fraud attempted to hire child actors to imitate legitimate operations? No, that's lacking enough evidence to prove it's true: Anyone could have published an anonymous post on Craigslist. The scenario - a day care center spending $90,000 on actors, doesn't appear to be likely due to inconsistencies.
The claim appeared in a now-deleted post (archived here) published on Craigslist on January 3, 2026. The headline began:
Daycare hiring child actors for 3 day contract (Ventura Village).
The post continued:
Hi All,
My family runs day care here in the city and have for over 5 years, until Monday when funding was cruelly ripped away without cause.
Due to this insane poor decision clear in white supremacy, we had to close our doors immediately. We must prove we are a function day care to get the funding back. The issue is, the ENTIRE client base has already found new daycare services so we need to find new clients base quickly.
To help hurry this state vetting processes, we are looking to hire 20 child actors for 3 days, while state is present on site.
We pay up to $1500 actor, per day. If you are interest, please send your child's age and a note of what makes your child a special actor. Submit phone number as well, as we will be doing quick phone interviews as part of hire process.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this ad.
The ad offered a total of $4,500 in compensation per child for three days of work.
This is what the archived version of this post on Craigslist looked like on the Internet Archive at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post saved at archive.org)
The post went viral amid a daycare controversy in Minnesota.
On December 30, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stopped (archived here) all related payments to that state over what was described as "allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares." That decision followed a December 26, 2025, video (archived here) published by blogger Nick Shirley in which he stated he did not find children at several of those centers.
Only one "5 year" center
Minnesota's Department of Children, Youth, and Families, however, said (archived here) that it visited the facilities and that nine out of ten centers shown in the video operated normally; one more, also mentioned in Shirley's blog, had been closed since 2022.
The list (archived here) included only one center that was roughly 5 years old (archived here), as of January 2026. As of this writing, nobody picked up the phone number listed on the facility's registration form when Lead Stories called.
State inspections are more than a headcount
Lead Stories reviewed the inspection records associated with that center, and it became evident that representatives of the state check for more than just children's physical presence on location. Some violations cited in the public records included a failure to timely repeat background checks on staff, issues with staff's training, children's access to sharp objects, improper hand-washing procedures and poor meal quality. The very fact that inspection results repeatedly mentioned children suggests that the facility was not empty when visited by the representatives of the state. Furthermore, the inspections are not always announced in advance (archived here), and, thus, it appears implausible that a center would be able to time the hiring and coaching of 20 child actors ahead of a specific date.
The post that includes the casting call, however, did not name any specific center and did not offer a precise address.
Feds say audit, not kids on site, will re-start funding
On January 5, 2026, the HHS confirmed to Lead Stories via email that at the federal level, the return of the funding depends on the results of the audit of the documentation turned in by the state to the HHS -- not on what the post on Craigslist described.
