Owner of Minnesota autism center pleads guilty in fraud scheme
A man who claimed to provide services for children with autism in Minnesota but instead raked in millions of dollars from fraudulent Medicaid billings pleaded guilty on Monday.
Abdinajib Yussuf pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. Charges say he opened Star Autism Center in St. Cloud in 2020 under the guise of providing one-on-one therapy to children with autism.
According to a federal indictment, he approached parents in the Somali community to recruit their children into Star Autism. If the child did not have an autism diagnosis, he would work with a service professional to get the child qualified for services.
Court documents say Yussuf submitted millions of dollars worth of claims for Medicaid reimbursement. He collected more than $6 million in reimbursement funds from the Minnesota Department of Services and UCare.
He'd share some of the kickbacks with the parents who enrolled their children in Star Autism, charges say. Prosecutors said he also bought a $100,000 Freightliner semi truck and sent $200,000 to Kenya.
Star Autism Center was raided by the FBI in 2024 alongside Smart Therapy Center. The woman who ran Smart Therapy stole $14 million in Medicaid funds, pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in December.
The investigation into the autism centers was a direct outgrowth of the probe into the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal.
Last week, the White House paused $259 million in federal Medicaid payments to the state, which Gov. Tim Walz called "totally illegal and unprecedented."
Vice President JD Vance and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who runs the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Wednesday the funding freeze is part of a broader national crackdown on fraud in the state.
