Charges were brought this week by federal prosecutors against 15 individuals in Minneapolis, with Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald announcing the defendants are accused of stealing more than $90 million from Minnesota social service programs.
Seven state-managed programs were targeted in the schemes, among them Medicaid, child care assistance, and child nutrition programs, CBS News reported. McDonald said the defendants "treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggybank," according to CNN.
Among the most significant allegations are charges against two operators of autism therapy clinics accused of submitting $46.6 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims, according to The New York Times. According to prosecutors, the two defendants funneled payments of up to $1,500 monthly per child to families as incentives to enroll in the program and obtain autism diagnoses, submitting Medicaid claims for therapy sessions that never took place. McDonald called the case the "largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the Department of Justice," according to CNN.
Among the additional counts, an indictment accuses group home operators in rural Minnesota of diverting more than $1 million in Medicaid payments for personal spending, with seven luxury vehicles among the purchases; separately, two defendants who provided housing services to vulnerable people are accused of padding their Medicaid claims with fictitious service hours, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hours earlier on the same day, a federal judge handed Aimee Bock, who founded Feeding Our Future, a prison term of nearly 42 years — punishment for her central role in what prosecutors described as the nation's single largest COVID-19 fraud, a scheme in which more than $250 million in federal funds was stolen, the Los Angeles Times reported. Bock was convicted on charges including conspiracy, fraud, and bribery.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared at the Minneapolis news conference, according to The New York Times. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, had originally planned to join the Minneapolis event, but diverted to Washington to meet with Republican senators over a contentious Justice Department funding controversy, CNN reported.
The new charges arrived roughly three weeks after agents fanned out across the Minneapolis area, hitting daycares, residences, and other properties as part of the same fraud probe, carrying out 22 search warrants in total. Since its launch on April 1, the Justice Department's new fraud division has filed 450 enforcement actions across the country, McDonald said, adding that Minnesota now has 11 prosecutors stationed there dedicated to the effort, according to CBS News.
"This is not the end of our work in Minnesota," McDonald said, according to CNN. "This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota."