Overview
- First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson announced fresh indictments and said investigators have flagged at least 14 state-run programs for widespread fraud.
- Prosecutors charged two Philadelphia men, Anthony Waddell Jefferson and Lester Brown, with setting up Minnesota provider companies and submitting up to $3.5 million in fake or inflated Medicaid bills.
- An additional defendant, Abdinajib Hassan Yussef, was charged in the autism services program in a scheme prosecutors say exceeded $6 million, and a previously charged participant in that program entered a guilty plea.
- Thompson described shell companies billing for no services and spending proceeds on luxury travel, cryptocurrency and overseas transfers, with some funds traced to real estate purchases abroad including in Kenya, and he said investigators have found no evidence the money directly financed terrorism.
- The expanding investigation has sharpened political scrutiny of Minnesota’s oversight, with Trump administration agencies initiating new reviews as Gov. Tim Walz points to added safeguards and an audit expected by late January.