The Department of Justice has charged 15 people in Minnesota with allegedly running fraud schemes that targeted more than $90 million in taxpayer money.
Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said:
Today we are announcing criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for fraud schemes that targeted over 90 million in taxpayer dollars.Let me be clear up front about something. This is not the end of our work in Minnesota. This is not the end of the beginning of our work in Minnesota. This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota. The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking.Our cases today involve seven different state managed Medicaid programs that have been systematically pilfered by fraudsters who treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggy bank.One of the programs has been completely shut down because there’s no money left. It’s all gone. That was Minnesota state-run housing stabilization services program designed to help the homeless find and maintain housing. It was estimated in 2020 that it would cost only about $2.5 million a year to fund this program, but it ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million by 2024 due to fraud. And because of all the fraud, Minnesota had to shut the program down in 2025 and now these services no longer exist for these vulnerable homeless populations.The same trends exist for other Minnesota-run taxpayer-funded programs. An autism program that cost the taxpayer $600,000 just six years ago skyrocketed to over $400 million. And to be sure that number is not driven by supply and demand, it is not driven by health care or charity, it is fraud.
The charges include people at two autism clinics:
Prosecutors allege defendants Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf fraudulently billed Medicaid more than $46 million for autism services that were either medically unnecessary or never provided.According to officials speaking from a press conference Thursday afternoon, the defendants allegedly paid parents between $300 and $1,500 per child to enroll their children in autism treatment programs before billing Medicaid for services using providers who either never worked at the clinics or were no longer employed there.The DOJ said the clinics ultimately received roughly $21 million in Medicaid reimbursements. Prosecutors allege that some of the proceeds were used to purchase luxury vehicles, Rolex watches, jewelry, and real estate, and to transfer funds overseas to Kenya.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described it as “the largest autism bust in American history.”
The DOJ accused those clinics of submitting Medicaid claims for therapists who did not work at the clinics.
The owner of Ultimate Home Health faces charges for allegedly submitting “$1.4 million in false charges to a Medicaid program meant to help adults with brain injuries live independently.”
The announcement comes as Aimee Bock, leader of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was convicted in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota and sentenced to over 41 years in prison.
Bock faced these charges in 2022, years before Nick Shirley exposed the numerous fraud schemes in Minnesota.
The government accused Bock of a fraud scheme netting over $240 million, targeting “two programs meant to feed hungry children, which were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by the state of Minnesota.”
“We are all up here because we love these programs,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator. “Medicaid is the fundamental payer of last resort for our most needy, most vulnerable citizens, and when we’re unable to keep these programs alive because of fraudsters, it hurts all of us deeply — and that’s what happened here in Minnesota.”
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