Minnesota woman convicted in $3.6M Medicaid housing services fraud

A federal jury has convicted a Minnesota provider of billing a now-defunct Medicaid housing program for services never delivered, including hours supposedly worked by staff in other countries. The case is the DOJ Fraud Division's first announced Minnesota conviction and illustrates the data-analysis techniques prosecutors now bring to health care fraud trials.

• Jury convicted Sharmaine Meadows on three counts of health care fraud; she faces up to 10 years per count at a later sentencing.
• The HSS Program paid her company over $3.6 million between 2020 and 2025 into accounts she exclusively controlled.
• Evidence included billing for staff in Illinois and the Philippines, hospitalised beneficiaries, and days exceeding 20 billed hours.

Executive summary

A federal jury in St. Paul convicted Sharmaine Meadows, 45, of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, on three counts of health care fraud for a scheme to defraud the now-defunct Minnesota Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) Program, the Justice Department announced on…

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