The United States Department of Justice on Thursday filed criminal charges against 15 people in Minnesota, accusing them of stealing more than $90 million from Medicaid and several other state-run social services programs.
Top officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, joined the announcement in Minneapolis as prosecutors laid out two sprawling schemes they say reached into care for children with autism and adults with disabilities. The charges landed the same day federal officials gathered around a case they now describe as one of the largest fraud crackdowns in the state in years.
Prosecutors said two defendants are accused of taking $46.6 million from a publicly funded program that paid for medical services for children with autism. They said some parents were paid kickbacks to bring their children to autism centers, children were diagnosed regardless of medical need, and services were billed even when they were never provided. Eleven other defendants were accused of taking more than $39.1 million from three programs meant to help people with disabilities live independently.
Colin McDonald said the charges include the highest loss amount ever charged in a Medicaid case in Minnesota and what he called the largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the Justice Department. He said the fraud in Minnesota is shocking. He also said the work is not finished.
The announcement came as Aimee Bock, the former leader of a Minnesota nonprofit convicted in a $250 million fraud case, was sentenced on Thursday. That case was described as the nation's single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme, and it has become part of a much broader federal drive to make Minnesota a focal point for public-benefit fraud enforcement.
That push has accelerated under the Trump administration. In March, the White House launched a nationwide initiative chaired by Vice President JD Vance to combat fraud. The administration later halted some Medicaid funding for Minnesota and froze Medicare enrollments for some hospice and home health care agencies. It also launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, a nearly three-month effort aimed at finding fraud in the state.
The new charges extend beyond autism and disability aid. Prosecutors said the defendants were also accused of stealing from programs meant to provide housing and meals for people in need, along with services for disabled people and autistic children. Federal investigators have pointed to earlier fraud cases in Minnesota that involved members of the state's Somali community, though those cases are separate from the charges announced Thursday.
The Justice Department said it plans to expand its Health Care Fraud Strike Force operation in the Midwest with 15 additional prosecutors. With that reinforcements coming, McDonald said Thursday's charges are not the end of the work. The next phase is whether investigators can turn a sweeping fraud case into lasting pressure on the networks that prosecutors say drained public aid across Minnesota.
