Colin McDonald Announces 15 Minnesota Fraud Charges, Targets $90 Million

Federal officials announced minnesota fraud charges against 15 Minnesota defendants on Thursday, saying the schemes targeted more than $90 million in taxpayer dollars from seven state-managed Medicaid programs. Colin McDonald, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s national fraud enforcement division, called the case “unprecedented.”

McDonald said, “Let me be clear upfront about something: This is not the end of our work in Minnesota, this is not the end of the beginning of our work in Minnesota, this is the beginning of our work in Minnesota,” signaling that the federal inquiry in the state is still active. The charges were announced the same day Aimee Bock received a sentence of more than 41 years in prison in a separate fraud case.

Colin McDonald on Thursday

The announcement put the focus on 15 defendants and seven Medicaid programs at once, a broader case than a single-program fraud prosecution. McDonald, speaking for the Justice Department’s national fraud enforcement division, tied the charges to schemes that targeted more than $90 million, a scale that places the case among the largest Minnesota fraud actions disclosed publicly on Thursday.

The government did not link the new charges to Bock’s case, and the two matters were described as separate. That separation matters for anyone following Minnesota fraud enforcement: the Justice Department is pursuing new defendants even as one of the state’s best-known fraud prosecutions reached sentencing.

Aimee Bock Sentencing

Bock, 45, was sentenced earlier on Thursday after a federal jury convicted her last year of using her nonprofit Feeding Our Future to steal millions of dollars from a federal child nutrition program meant to feed needy kids. Just before sentencing, she said, “I don’t have the words to express just how horrible I feel. I know I’m responsible,” according to court proceedings.

In court filings, prosecutors said the “brazen and staggering” nature of her crimes has shaken Minnesota to its core, leaving lasting damage and eroding public trust. That language set the backdrop for Thursday’s new charges, which extend federal scrutiny beyond one nonprofit and into seven Medicaid programs run by the state.

Seven Medicaid Programs

For Minnesotans who rely on state-managed Medicaid programs, the immediate change is not a service cutoff in the record; it is a widening fraud case that now spans seven programs and 15 defendants. The federal announcement shows prosecutors are treating the alleged losses as a large public-money case rather than an isolated billing dispute.

McDonald’s statement that this is “the beginning of our work in Minnesota” points to more filings ahead. For now, the case centers on the newly charged defendants, the more than $90 million prosecutors say was targeted, and a federal effort that now runs alongside the separate Feeding Our Future prosecution.