A 28-year-old woman was charged with wire fraud Wednesday, Sept. 24, for what federal prosecutors allege is her role in a $14 million scheme to defraud Minnesota’s Medicaid autism treatment program — the first person charged as part of what is believed to be a wide-ranging investigation.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota charged Asha Farhan Hassan for what they say is her role in the theft from the state’s Early Intensive Developmental Behavioral Intervention services program, which is supposed to assist people under 21 with autism spectrum disorder. The Reformer first reported the autism Medicaid fraud investigation last year.
Prosecutors also said Hassan used her business to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program that was at the center of the massive pandemic-era food aid scandal known as Feeding Our Future, according to court documents.
Ryan Pacyga, Hassan’s attorney, said that Hassan will plead guilty to the charge.
“Ms. Hassan is someone who genuinely wanted to help people in the community with programs, and I do believe that she got into business for the right reasons in her heart. But at some point, the billing got out of control, the fraud started to happen and it snowballed quickly,” Pacyga told the Reformer.
In 2019, Hassan began Smart Therapy with several partners to purportedly provide one-on-one therapy to children with autism. To be reimbursed by the state, Smart Therapy needed to enroll children with autism, and Hassan and her partners approached parents in the Somali community to recruit and enroll children, according to court documents. Some of the children were not diagnosed with autism.
Hassan and Smart Therapy paid monthly kickbacks ranging from $300 to $1,500 each month to the parents who enrolled their children with Smart Therapy, according to court documents.
Smart Therapy quickly became one of the state’s biggest autism treatment providers.
Smart Therapy also employed 18- or 19-year-old relatives with no experience related to the treatment of autism and had no formal education beyond high school, according to court documents.
Smart Therapy obtained over $14 million from 2019 to 2024 from Medicaid through the Minnesota Department of Human Services and U Care, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Reformer reported in 2024 that a former supervisor at Smart Therapy made repeated attempts to report what she said were negligence and fraud to state officials.
Growth of spending on the Minnesota autism program has exploded in recent years. The number of providers — who are supposed to diagnose and treat people with autism spectrum disorder — has increased 700% in five years, climbing from 41 providers in 2018 to over 300 in 2023.
In a statement, DHS says it currently has 84 open cases on autism providers. In fall of 2024, it began onsite visits to the providers and to date it has visited 342 providers.
While allegedly defrauding the autism program, Hassan also used Smart Therapy to submit fraudulent claims to Feeding Our Future, according to court documents. Between 2020 and 2021, Hassan claimed to serve nearly 200,000 meals to children in Smart Therapy, for which she received about $465,000, the documents said.
Hassan shared the fraudulent dollars with her partners, sent hundreds of thousands abroad and used some of the money to purchase real estate in Kenya, according to court documents.
Wednesday’s charge is another instance of the alleged defrauding of a Minnesota public program.
“Today’s charges mark the first in the ongoing investigation into fraud in the EIDBI Autism Program,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson in a statement. “To be clear, this is not an isolated scheme. From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network.”
Hassan is at least the 76th person charged in the Feeding Our Future investigation.
Last week, Thompson announced charges against eight in another Medicaid fraud scheme through the state’s Housing Stabilization Services program.
The latest charges are likely to be more fodder for opponents of DFL Gov. Tim Walz — who announced last week he’s running for a third term — who say his administration was asleep on the watchtower as fraudsters looted state programs.
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.
