Asha Farhan Hassan, who was the first person to be charged in a $14 million scheme to defraud a Medicaid autism program and who stole $465,000 from an initiative to feed children in need, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in Minnesota on Thursday. The 28-year-old will be sentenced later.
Hassan’s plea came as the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for Minnesota announced new charges against six additional defendants in a sprawling and huge fraud scandal that is gripping the state, and which has roots in its large Somali community, who are now in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.
Trump, who has disparaged the Somali community, saying they take from the country while contributing very little, is touting the fraud scandal as proof that many immigrants, legal and illegal, are exploiting the U.S., and so vindicates his policy of mass deportations. His opponents say he is unfairly tarnishing entire groups of people for the actions of a minority.
One scheme in which Hassan was involved was making false claims for reimbursement of the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit, a Minnesota public health program that provided support and medical services to people under 21 with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
The second scheme was Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit to provide meals to schoolchildren, which drew on state grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet very few meals were ever provided, and much of the money was allegedly stolen.
A third scheme in which Hassan was not charged involved defrauding Medicaid coverage for Housing Stabilization Services in Minnesota.
Some $9 billion in Medicaid claims paid out in Minnesota since 2018 may be fraudulent, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, a federal prosecutor involved with the probe, said Thursday, calling it “staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”
“The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said, adding, “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes.” He noted several different schemes, saying: “Every day, we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud scheme.”
The state’s Democratic leadership is under pressure for failure to detect and prevent the massive fraud sooner. Republicans accuse them of turning a blind eye for political gain, garnering donations and support from those perpetrating and benefiting from the fraud—a characterization Democrats strongly reject.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024 and is up for re-election, hailed the latest charges and defended his administration’s record on tackling fraud. “This is exactly the type of strong action we need from prosecutors to ensure fraudsters are put behind bars,” Walz said in a statement, describing it as “infuriating greed”.
“We will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught,” Walz said, and pointed to recent action on auditing and enforcement his administration had taken.
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