President Trump’s Justice Department just put Minnesota’s fraud problem back in the national spotlight.
Federal authorities announced charges against 15 more people accused of defrauding state-managed social-service programs, with the new cases tied to an alleged $90 million in fraud across seven Medicaid programs.
Two of the defendants were accused of billing Medicaid for $21.1 million in autism therapy that investigators say was either unnecessary or never provided.
HHS Secretary Kennedy called the Minnesota arrests the largest autism fraud bust in American history.
🚨 IT'S OFFICIAL: Health Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces the LARGEST autism fraud bust in US HISTORY in Minnesota
Initial cost: $38M
Cost this year: $442 MILLION."This was organized theft that EXPLOITED the most vulnerable children in America!"
Lay the hammer on these… pic.twitter.com/fGaRSA7QV9
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 21, 2026
Kennedy also described the scheme as organized theft that exploited vulnerable children.
That is exactly the kind of line that should make every taxpayer in the country stop cold.
AP included these details from the new Minnesota cases:
Authorities announced charges against 15 more people accused of fraud in federal payments for social services administered through Minnesota’s state government. The fresh criminal cases involved alleged fraud totaling $90 million across seven state-managed Medicaid programs, according to the government.
The targets included a Minneapolis childcare executive, two people accused in a housing-services subsidy case, and two additional people accused in the autism-therapy billing scheme. The cases were announced the same day a federal judge sentenced the former head of Feeding Our Future in a separate $250 million fraud case.
The autism-therapy defendants were accused of receiving $21.1 million by billing Medicaid for therapy that investigators said was either unnecessary or not provided. Investigators said the two paid families as much as $1,500 per child per month to add their names to the program and obtain reimbursement.
HHS Secretary Kennedy said criminals would not be allowed to treat children as billing opportunities while American taxpayers foot the bill. The same report noted that President Trump had previously blasted Minnesota as a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity and criticized Governor Tim Walz’s leadership.
That last detail is the political part the media would rather soften.
This happened in Governor Tim Walz’s Minnesota, inside programs run through the state, after years of warnings about fraud exploding through the system.
The sourced point is clean and still devastating: this is the system under his watch.
Federal prosecutors keep finding alleged fraud on a massive scale.
BREAKING: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces “unprecedented” charges in the DOJ’s MAJOR $90M Minnesota fraud takedown.
He called it “the largest autism fraud bust in American history.”
KENNEDY: “Today’s arrests represent the largest autism fraud bust in American history.”
“This… pic.twitter.com/gkZMtqllzu
— Overton (@overton_news) May 21, 2026
The autism-program angle did not come out of nowhere, either.
Federal prosecutors had already been pursuing Minnesota autism-fraud cases before this latest takedown.
The Justice Department described the broader autism-fraud pattern in an earlier Minnesota case:
The Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit is a publicly funded Minnesota Health Care Program meant to provide medically necessary services to people under 21 with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Prosecutors alleged that one charged defendant used Star Autism Center LLC to defraud that program from late 2020 through December 2024.
The alleged scheme involved unqualified workers, child recruitment, monthly cash kickbacks to parents, inflated claims, claims billed without providers’ knowledge, and reimbursement requests for services that were not actually provided. Prosecutors said the kickback payments were financed through fraudulent Medicaid billing.
ADVERTISEMENTStar Autism obtained more than $6 million in EIDBI reimbursement funds, according to prosecutors. The same official release said one defendant charged in a separate $14 million autism-fraud scheme had also been charged in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.
So when Kennedy says children were treated like billing opportunities, he is not talking in vague Washington language.
He is pointing at a pipeline that allegedly turned vulnerable kids into a Medicaid cash machine.
The Trump DOJ is now forcing that pipeline into the open.
And if Minnesota’s own leaders were not willing or able to stop it, then this is exactly why federal enforcement matters.
Fifteen more defendants. Ninety million dollars in alleged fraud.
Two defendants accused of a $21.1 million autism-therapy scheme.
That is not paperwork abuse. That is a moral scandal.
And under President Trump, the people behind it are finally being dragged into court.
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