AG charges 5 defendants in Medicaid fraud cases totaling $10M

Five people have been charged in connection with two investigations of Medicaid fraud totaling more than $10 million in ill-gotten public funds, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday.

The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Attorney General’s Office led the fraud investigations.

In one case, two people are charged in connection with defrauding the Medicaid program of more than $7.2 million through Promise Health Services, LLC, a home services agency that had no physical office and operated out of a mailbox at a Minneapolis address.

Abdifatah Yusuf and Lul Ahmed are accused of obtaining the funds by billing for services that were either not provided, were based on phony documentation or lacked documentation altogether. The agency also allegedly doled out kickbacks to induce people into receiving “services” from Promise.

Investigators found Yusuf and Ahmed used the funds to buy luxury goods, and Yusuf allegedly withdrew more than $387,000 in cash using funds transferred from Promise to his personal bank account.

Yusuf is charged with one count of racketeering and six counts of felony aiding and abetting theft by swindle, and Ahmed faces two felony counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle.

Another defendant, Abdiweli Mohamud, is charged with one count of racketeering and six counts of felony aiding and abetting theft by swindle for his involvement in Minnesota Home Health Care, LLC.

Mohamud owned Minnesota Home Health Care but is accused of allowing Abdirashid Said, who is excluded from federal health care programs, to run the business. Said was charged last year in Minnesota’s largest-ever Medicaid fraud case, and the charges against Yusuf, Ahmed and Mohamud stem from that original investigation.

Under Mohamud’s ownership, Minnesota Home Health Care billed Medicaid more than $300,000 for personal care assistant services that weren’t documented or fraudulently documented and another $200,000 for services that weren’t under the supervision of a qualified professional, according to Ellison’s office. The company allegedly received more than $1.8 million in total for ineligible services.

Two more defendants are charged under a second investigation of a non-emergency medical transportation company, Driving Miss Daisy, accused of defrauding Medicaid of more than $1.4 million for services that weren’t provided or couldn’t have been provided as they claimed.

The co-conspirators, Charles Omato and LaTonia Jackson, are charged with five and seven counts, respectively, of aiding and abetting theft by false representation.

Criminal complaints against all five defendants were filed in Hennepin County.