Minnesota Woman Pleads Guilty in Two Separate Massive Fraud Cases
St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Plymouth woman has pleaded guilty in federal court to her role in two separate fraud cases, including the $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program and a Medicaid fraud scheme.
Prosecutors said 52-year-old Anab Awad pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Friday.
Court documents show Awad used a non-profit entity called Multiple Community Services where she controlled Federal Child Nutrition Program food distribution sites in Osseo, Minneapolis, and Faribault.
According to her guilty plea, Awad admitted to falsifying invoices and meal count records with ‘substantially inflated figures.” Awad received Federal Child Nutrition Program funds that substantially exceeded the amount of food that she either purchased or served to children.
Prosecutors said the funds that Awad received from the Federal Child Nutrition Program went into accounts that she controlled, which included, approximately $3.7 million directly from Sponsor A, and approximately $3 million from a vendor that provided no food to Awad.
In total, Awad fraudulently claimed over $11.2 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds, of which the Minnesota Department of Education paid out over $9.6 million. In all, Awad and her vendors obtained $9,333,858.24 in fraud proceeds for herself and others.
In a separate case, from April 2015 through July 2016, Awad worked as an interpreter for two companies that were providers that billed services to the Minnesota Medicaid program.
In this role, Awad conspired with mental health practitioners at Minnesota Multicultural Counseling and Consultant to sign billing forms for mental health and related interpretation services that were not provided. Awad’s fraudulent claims caused a loss of over $99,000 to the Minnesota Medicaid program as part of a broader $4 million scheme.
A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date.