Has MN fraud reached $10 billion yet?
It sure looks like it. Lead federal prosecutor Joe Thompson held a 35-minute press conference today to discuss the scope of the fraud, and to announce six more indictments and a new FBI raid.
You can see the entire event at this link. The program begins at the 3:00 mark.
Our man Bill Walsh was in the room. A U.S. Dept. of Justice press release can be read here.
The big news coming out todqy was an update on the massive scale of the Minnesota fraud problem. Thompson and his team have been looking into 14 Medicaid programs run by the state Department of Human Services (DHS) that DHS has labeled as high risk.
Pulling the numbers, the U.S. Attorney reports that these 14 programs have paid out some $18 billion (with a “b”) since 2018. Thompson believes that “half or more” (32:10) of that amount went to fraud.
Adding in Feeding Our Future and other non-Medicaid frauds, you quickly reach the $10 billion mark (with a “b”) in total fraud committed in Minnesota over the past seven years or so.
Today, Thompson announced a new guilty plea and a new indictment in the autism-clinic scandal, bringing the total dollar amount of that fraud charged to far to $20 millon.
He also announced five new individuals charged in the Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) scandal, bringing the total dollar amount charged to about $10 million. Most notable among the five new defendants were two gentlemen from Philadelphia, who necessitated the creation of the phrase “fraud tourism.”
Finally, Thompson reported on a new FBI raid related to yet another Medicaid program, Integrated Community Support (ICS).
Updating ScandalTrackerTM for the new information revealed by the U.S. Attorney’s office this afternoon.
