Trump officials tout charges, convictions tied to Minnesota social services fraud

Top Trump administration officials on Friday highlighted their effort to prosecute public program fraud in Minnesota during a news conference in St. Cloud days before the midterm elections.

The FBI in Minneapolis executed 17 search warrants Thursday and charged four people who allegedly defrauded government programs, FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters.

“They thought they could get away with their crimes,” he said. “They did not succeed because of this team and the president and vice president’s anti-fraud task force.”

The people charged include:

• Faiza Osman Ahmed, 41, the owner of Home Sweet Home Health Care in Bloomington, is accused of stealing $8 million from three programs meant to help elderly and disabled people receive care at home.

• Feisal Mohamed Elmi, 46, who owns Aspen Associates in Minneapolis, allegedly defrauded the state’s autism program out of $2.8 million.

• Jama Yusuf Mohamod, 68, is charged with defrauding Medicaid’s Integrated Community Supports program out of $3.2 million through his Maple Grove company American Home Health Care.

Ahmed, Elmi, and Mohamod each pleaded not guilty during their initial court appearances in Minneapolis on Thursday.

Also charged is Habiba Mohamed, a co-owner of Smart Therapy in Minneapolis, who’s accused of taking part in a scheme to defraud Medicaid’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program for children with autism out of $14 million. Mohamed is expected to plead guilty at a Nov. 12 hearing in St. Paul, according to court records.

Three other people connected with the business were charged previously, including Asha Farhan Hassanwho pleaded guilty in December to defrauding the autism program and to taking part in the Feeding Our Future scheme.

“Our nation’s war on fraud started right here in Minnesota,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “The problems we identified here are not unique to Minnesota, but they are particularly evident in Minnesota.”

‘Crush fraud’

Oz also highlighted the case of Sharmaine Meadows of Lake Elmo, who was convicted on Oct. 7 of three counts of health care fraud tied to the Minnesota Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services Program that the Walz administration shut down last year. Oz vowed to “crush fraud and corruption here and nationwide.”

Since 2022, state and federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged more than 100 people with defrauding government social service programs with much of that work centered around the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.

The Trump administration cited fraud as justification for surging thousands of federal immigration agents into Minnesota last winter. However, no one arrested during the winter operation was charged with fraud.

While Friday’s news conference was an official White House event, Republicans have made fraud a focal point of political campaigns for state and federal offices in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm election. Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the White House task force on fraud, was scheduled to attend but canceled late Thursday.

Why St. Cloud?

Officials didn’t specify why they chose St. Cloud for the news conference, since none of the defendants mentioned is from St. Cloud. Bessent said they were invited by an assistant U.S. attorney, and he said the task force is “very interested” in what’s happening in the region.

“The center of the fraudulent activity is Minneapolis-St. Paul, but this is all over the entire state,” he said. “The Walz administration has been woefully negligent and turned a blind eye, so every citizen of Minnesota is a victim.”

Bessent blamed Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for the fraud, suggesting without evidence that Walz was complicit.

Walz’s office responded that the state has been fighting fraud for years. “Today’s press conference offered no new information and amounted to a political spectacle just days before an election,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

One reason for the news conference location could be St. Cloud’s large Somali American population. Most of the people charged in the Feeding Our Future case are originally from East Africa, although convicted ringleader Aimee Bock is white.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly singled out Somali immigrants for attacks, including calling them “garbage” and urging Minnesotans to “fight back” against them.

Bessent declined to answer a question from KARE11 reporter Lou Raguse about the Department of Homeland Security’s August purchase of a private prison in AppletonMin. for $495.6 million.

New reporting from the Twin Cities TV station found that the prison’s former owner, CoreCivic, had offered to sell the facility to the state of Minnesota for $75 million in 2025 before the federal government purchased it for more than six times that amount.

The $420 million difference is more than the estimated $300 million that fraudsters connected to the Feeding Our Future scheme stole during the pandemic. KARE points to federal records that show donations from CoreCivic to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee totaled a half million dollars and that the company’s CEO contributed to political committees associated with President Trump.