The announcement comes amid escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Minnesota officials over allegations of fraud.Show Caption
Trump administration officials announced criminal charges against 15 defendants in Minnesota for alleged fraud schemes that targeted more than $90 million in taxpayer dollars, including cases involving Medicaid and autism-related benefits."Today's charges are unprecedented," Colin McDonald, who leads the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division, said at a May 21 press conference in Minneapolis."They include the highest loss amount ever charged in a Medicaid case in Minnesota, and the largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the Department of Justice," McDonald added.The announcement comes amid escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Minnesota officials over allegations of fraud.Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2024, ended a governor reelection bid in January amid accusations of fraud in the state, including a federal prosecutor's estimate that fraud in state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 could total more than $9 billion.Walz, whose office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment May 21, has previously pushed back on some of the fraud allegations."You're seeing a weaponization," Walz said at a press conference Dec. 19."They're going to continue to come up with numbers that don't have it there, and it's, it's sensationalized. I don't expect anything different from this administration," he said.'Disabled individuals were used like lottery tickets'McDonald described an alleged scheme in which two defendants paid kickbacks to parents who brought their children to autism centers. The children were diagnosed with autism, even if that wasn't medically required, and the government was billed for autism services that weren't actually provided.In another case, involving more than $22 million, two defendants allegedly defrauded a program meant to help people with disabilities live in their own homes."Instead, these disabled individuals were used like lottery tickets by these defendants to generate millions of dollars, which these defendants used to expand their real estate holdings, purchase luxury vehicles, and splurge on expensive jewelry," McDonald said."The fraud here in Minnesota is shocking," according to McDonald. "We will not, full stop, tolerate this greed and deceit."Other prominent Trump administration officials also spoke out against the alleged fraud, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services."We will not allow criminals to treat children as billing opportunities, while American taxpayers foot the bill," Kennedy said at the press conference."We are all up here because we love these programs," Oz said. "When we're unable to keep these programs alive because of fraudsters, it hurts all of us," Oz added.Since February, the federal government has halted hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding to Minnesota due to concerns of potential fraud in the state.Oz said May 21 that federal officials won't be releasing those funds until they get answers from the Minnesota state government to questions they have asked. He said the state has funds to cover the withheld money.
