Federal authorities on Thursday said they’ve filed criminal charges against 15 people in Minnesota for allegedly stealing from federal programs, including one meant to help children with autism and another intended to help vulnerable people find stable homes.
Those charged allegedly stole more than $90 million from those taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs, Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s national fraud enforcement division, told reporters.
Seven state-managed Medicaid programs were “systematically pilfered” by people who used them “as their personal piggy bank,” McDonald added. He described it as the “beginning of our work in Minnesota.”
The news conference comes a day after federal prosecutors filed a fresh batch of social service program fraud charges — and on the same day Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison for leading a scheme to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Brazen schemes’
In documents filed Wednesday, investigators allege that Fahima E. Mahamud, who owned Future Leaders Early Learning Center on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, defrauded Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program out of $4.6 million.
Prosecutors initially charged Mahamud, 50, in February with falsely claiming reimbursement for $854,000 in children’s meals via Feeding Our Future. Those charges still stand.
In a separate case, Jillaine Mertens, 43, is charged with defrauding Minnesota's Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program out of $425,000 by falsely claiming to have employed 23 people at child care centers in Rochester, Kasson, and Ramsey.
In a third case unsealed on Wednesday, federal prosecutors allege that Mustafa Dayib and Abdulbasit Ibrahim, who are in their twenties, defrauded the state’s Housing Stabilization Services program out of $975,000.
According to the charging document, the men started a company called Vitality Health Services in 2022 and billed Medicaid for “false claims that significantly overrepresented the hours of services they provided” to Medicaid recipients in need of help finding and keeping stable housing.
Mahamud, Mertens, Dayib, and Ibrahim are all charged by criminal information, which means they are expected to plead guilty after waiving their right to have a grand jury determine probable cause.
According to the Justice Department, Minnesota in 2020 became the first state in the country to offer Medicaid coverage for HSS, which was designed to help people with disabilities find and maintain housing.
The program, though, had “low barriers to entry and minimal records requirements for reimbursement,” opening it to fraud, the Justice Department said. HSS was initially expected to spend about $2.6 million annually but paid out more than $26 million in 2021 and more than $104 in 2024, federal authorities said.
Gov. Tim Walz shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program last year amid allegations of fraud. In September, prosecutors announced an initial set of charges against eight people in connection with HSS fraud.
Also Wednesday, grand jury indictments were unsealed that charge three others with fraud in Minnesota Medicaid programs.
Ahmed O. Kadar, 23, is accused of bilking taxpayers out of $1.4 million by overbilling the Integrated Community Supports program in 2024 and 2025 through his company Ultimate Home Health.
According to the indictment, Ultimate rented an 11-unit apartment building that Kadar used to house Medicaid recipients for whom he allegedly filed fraudulent claims.
Prosecutors say that Kadar failed to respond to repeated complaints from tenants “that power had been shut off to their units, resulting in Medicaid recipients being forced to live in units without heat during winter.” Kadar is charged with health care fraud and money laundering.
In December, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson announced the investigation into ICS at a news conference where he also estimated that fraud in 14 vulnerable Medicaid programs, including ICS and HSS, cost taxpayers $9 billion, although the dollar amounts tied to prosecutions were closer to $300 million prior to the charges announced Thursday.
Asked about Thompson’s $9 billion figure, McDonald said he was focused on prosecuting individual cases and that a final tally would come later but added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that number is accurate or even small.”
In a second indictment unsealed Wednesday, Shamso A. Hassan and Hanaan M. Yusuf are accused of defrauding Minnesota’s Early Intensive Development and Behavioral Intervention, or EIDBI, program, which is meant to help children with autism.
Hassan and Yusuf were part owners of Smart Therapy Center in Minneapolis and Star Autism Center in St. Cloud. They and other owners of the businesses allegedly paid kickbacks to parents in exchange for enrolling their children, regardless of any autism symptoms.
Prosecutors allege that the businesses submitted $46.6 million in fraudulent claims, for which they were reimbursed $21.1 million.
The autism center fraud investigation became public when the FBI searched Smart Therapy and Star Autism in late 2024.
Asha Hassan, who was the CEO of Smart Therapy, pleaded guilty in December 2025 to fraud charges. Abdinajib Yussuf, the CEO of Star Autism Center, pleaded guilty in March.
Collectively, it “represents the largest autism fraud bust in American history,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters Thursday as the latest charges were announced.
“This was not a paperwork error. It was not a technical violation. This was organized theft that exploited the most vulnerable children in America,” he said. “Investigators uncovered brazen schemes that billed taxpayers for nonexistent services, fraudulent diagnoses and fake care while criminals enriched themselves at public expense.”
‘Crush the fraudsters’
In a statement accompanying the charges, the Justice Department said two people were charged in connection with alleged $47 million scheme to defraud the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, which offers medically necessary services to people younger than 21 with autism spectrum disorder.
“In 2017, Minnesota became one of the first states to offer Medicaid coverage for EIDBI services. EIDBI claims skyrocketed from over $600,000 in 2018 to over $400 million by 2025,” the department said, alleging that kickbacks were paid to parents who brought their children to autism centers, that children were diagnosed with autism “regardless of medical necessity” and that the government was billed for autism services that were not provided.
At the press conference Thursday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, noted the huge jump in spending in the autism program and said some care providers were “bribing parents to lie that their children have autism.” He also suggested some doctors were complicit.
Oz noted that $350 million in Medicaid funds for Minnesota are on hold amid concerns about fraud. He said money would stay deferred until the state can justify the spending.
He also said the state is now reevaluating some 5,600 people eligible to provide aid to vulnerable people, adding that he’s been told some 40 percent have either not responded or responded in a way that is “clearly inadequate,” and that ultimately half may end up no longer eligible to provide services.
“We love these programs,” Oz added, “but we’re going to crush these fraudsters.”
Late in the press conference, a reporter noted that President Donald Trump had granted clemency to others in the country found to have stolen tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds and asked if any of those charged in Minnesota might expect similar leniency.
“I'll take a different question as the final question,” McDonald responded.
Outside the federal courthouse, about 50 people gathered to protest the Trump administration officials scheduled to speak.
Demonstrators carried signs against Trump and RFK Jr. Many also wore white buttons that read “Release the Epstein files” with the name Epstein redacted by a black box.
“If anything, the fraudulent activities that's going on within the higher government should be looked into from the FBI, not what's going on around here,” said Joseph Mateski of St. Paul.