'Fraud tourists' to plead guilty to Minnesota Medicaid scheme

* Two men from Philadelphia are accused of traveling to Minnesota to take advantage of "easy money" through the state’s Medicaid programs.

* The FOX 9 Investigators confirmed both men will plead guilty during plea hearings scheduled for next month.

* Authorities allege the pair’s scheme involved $3.5 million in fraudulent Medicaid billing.

Federal prosecutors charged Anthony Jefferson and Lester Brown, both from Philadelphia, with exploiting the state’s social service programs to line their own pockets.

At the time they were charged in December, Joe Thompson, First Assistant U.S. Attorney, stated, "These defendants came here not to enjoy our lakes. Our beautiful summers and warm people. They came here because they knew and understood that Minnesota was a place where taxpayer money could be taken with little risk and few consequences."

Thompson said the men rented office space in Minnesota, registering a pair of companies, Chozen Runner LLC and Retsel Real Estate LLC, and enrolled them in the HSS program, but largely billed the state from more than 1,000 miles away.

"My understanding is they lived in Philadelphia, and they came here to enroll patients," explained Thompson. "And then they, whatever services they, whatever forms they submitted, they submitted from their homes in Philadelphia."

The two men allegedly marketed themselves as "The Housing Guys," and targeted shelters and Section 8 housing to enroll individuals in the Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program.

Thursday, December 18, 2025
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Minnesota

Six Additional Defendants Charged,
One Pleads Guilty in Ongoing Fraud Schemes
Charged in Autism and Housing Schemes, \New ICS Investigation Begins

MINNEAPOLIS – Six additional defendants have been charged federally with participating in schemes to defraud the government in the Autism fraud scheme and the Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) fraud scheme. One defendant charged in the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) Autism scheme pled guilty today. And this morning, federal agents executed a search warrant relating to fraud in an additional state program, the Integrated Community Services (ICS) program, announced U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen.

The EIDBI Autism Fraud Scheme———In the Autism fraud scheme, Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, age 27, has been charged by federal information with one count of wire fraud. As set forth in the information, Yussuf and others devised and carried out a scheme to defraud the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit, a publicly funded Minnesota Health Care Program that offers medically necessary services to people under the age of 21 with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Yussuf was the President and CEO of Star Autism Center LLC.

From late 2020 through December 2024, Yussuf used Star Autism to carry out a scheme to defraud the EIDBI program. Star Autism purported to provide necessary one-on-one therapy to children with autism. In fact, Star Autism employed unqualified individuals as “behavioral technicians.” These behavioral technicians were often 18- or 19-year-old relatives, with no formal education beyond high school and no training or certifications related to the treatment of autism.

To run their fraud scheme, Yussuf and his partners needed children who had an autism diagnosis and an individual treatment plan. They approached parents in the Somali community to recruit their children into Star Autism. If a child did not have an autism diagnosis, Yussuf and his partners worked to get the recruited child qualified for autism services.

As a recruitment tactic to drive up enrollment, Star Autism paid monthly cash kickback payments to parents who enrolled their children to receive EIDBI services through Star Autism. The amount of these payments was contingent on the services DHS authorized a child to receive—the higher the authorization amount, the higher the kickback.

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