Alleged autism program scammer also charged in Feeding Our Future fraud
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Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged the owner of Smart Therapy, a Minneapolis business registered as an autism treatment clinic, with stealing $14 million from a state program that funds services for young people with autism spectrum disorder.
Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, is also accused of enrolling Smart Therapy in federally funded child nutrition programs under the sponsorship of the now-defunct nonprofit Feeding our Future and fleecing taxpayers out of another $465,000.
The FBI investigation into fraud in Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, or EIDBI, became public in December, when FBI agents searched Smart Therapy near downtown Minneapolis along with Star Autism Center in St. Cloud. Prosecutors have not charged anyone connected with the St. Cloud business.
Hassan is the first person charged in the autism fraud investigation and the 76th defendant charged in the Feeding Our Future investigation. In a statement, Acting Minnesota U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said the schemes are connected.
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“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,” Thompson said. “Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network.”
In a document known as a criminal information, Hassan is charged with one count of wire fraud. Prosecutors’ use of an information, rather than an indictment, indicates that Hassan has waived her right to have a grand jury review the evidence against her and intends to plead guilty.
For the last decade, Medicaid and children's health plans have been required to cover Applied Behavior Analysis therapy for kids with autism spectrum disorder. The EIDBI program in Minnesota is for people under 21 who are eligible for Medical Assistance, MinnesotaCare or similar programs.
As with the child nutrition and housing stabilization programs, investigators said that reimbursement claims for EIDBI grew sharply because of widespread fraud. EIDBI claims in 2017 were just $1.7 million but hit $55 million two years later. Claims peaked at $400 million in 2023, but Medicaid only reimbursed about half of that, according to the 2024 FBI search warrant affidavit.
According to the charges, Hassan enrolled Smart Therapy as a provider agency in the EIDBI program soon after forming the company in 2019. She listed herself as the sole owner, but others with ownership stakes were not listed in Department of Human Services documents because one person previously owned an adult daycare and was excluded by DHS for three years because of misconduct.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Smart Therapy hired unqualified “behavioral technicians,” typically 18- or 19-year-old relatives who had no training or certification to treat children with autism.
“Where a child did not have an autism diagnosis and an individual treatment plan,” which were required for Smart Therapy to be reimbursed, “Hassan and her partners worked with a [qualified supervising professional] to get the recruited children qualified for autism services,” prosecutors wrote. “There was no child that Smart Therapy was not able to get qualified for autism services.”
While allegedly operating the scam over four years, Hassan paid monthly cash kickbacks to parents ranging from $300 to $1,500 per child. “Often, parents threatened to leave Smart Therapy and take their children to other autism centers if they did not get paid higher kickbacks,” prosecutors said.
Hassan allegedly sought reimbursement for the maximum number of hours permitted by Medicaid for a particular treatment or service, even if clients received very little or no treatment or services. Most of the children recruited were dropped off at the center in the mornings by drivers on Smart Therapy’s payroll who also billed DHS for transportation services.
Beginning in July 2020, prosecutors say that Hassan enrolled her company in federal child nutrition programs under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims for meals that she never served to children.
Between 2020 and 2021 Hassan allegedly claimed to have served 200,000 meals at the downtown Minneapolis site and claimed $465,000 in taxpayer funds.
Prosecutors say Hassan split the money with the other owners of Smart Therapy and sent “hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud proceeds” overseas and used some of the money to purchase real estate in Kenya.
