MINNEAPOLIS — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced charges against a woman accused of defrauding a Minnesota program that offers autism treatment services as part of a sprawling scheme, while simultaneously raking in money in another massive fraud investigation known as the Feeding Our Future case.

Court filings charging one count of wire fraud against Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, detail an alleged plot to collect millions in fraudulent proceeds through her company, Smart Therapy Center LLC, which she enrolled in Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) program. The EIDBI benefit is funded by state and federal money to serve people under 21 with autism spectrum disorder.

The charges follow FBI raids of Smart Therapy Center in Minneapolis and the Star Autism Center in St. Cloud last December following an investigation into the EIDBI-related fraud that overlapped with the massive Feeding Our Future food-aid fraud conspiracy.

The charge alleges Hassan enrolled Smart Therapy Center in the EIDBI program as well as the federal child nutrition program meant to feed hungry children during the COVID-19 pandemic, under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. The nonprofit, according to prosecutors, is at the center of the $250 million food fraud case.

Court filings say from 2019 to late 2024, Hassan and her partners received more than $14 million in reimbursements from the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ EIDBI program and UCare insurance carrier by submitting claims for autism services that often were not provided or not covered. Prosecutors said she split the proceeds with her partners and sent hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad, including for real estate in Kenya.

Hassan’s attorney, Ryan Pacyga, said she intends to plead guilty “in the near future. It is her best path forward.”

“Ms. Hassan started businesses with a genuine desire to serve her community. She did real work. But after some time, fraud began to happen,” Pacyga said. “We determined it was best to take responsibility early and work an agreement out with the US attorney’s office. Ms. Hassan is doing what she can to make it right.”

The Minnesota Star Tribune has reached out to the Department of Human Services and UCare for comment.

The charging document said Hassan and others recruited families in the Somali community to enroll in Smart Therapy, even if their child did not have autism. To ramp up enrollment, Hassan and her partners divvied up monthly kickback payments to parents ranging from $300 to $1,500 per month to enroll their children in their program, according to court records.

“There was no child that Smart Therapy was not able to get qualified for autism services,” the charge against Hassan read.

Parents often threatened to take their children to other autism centers if they did not receive higher kickbacks from Smart Therapy, the court filing said. Several families ultimately did leave after being offered larger payments by other centers.

Federal prosecutors said Smart Therapy often employed 18-year-old relatives as “behavioral technicians” with no formal education beyond high school or training related to autism treatment. The center also billed the state for services rendered by providers who were outside the country at the time or sometimes not on the clinic’s payroll. Transportation services were also billed for drivers who dropped off children in the morning and picked them up in the evening hours.

Prosecutors said that within the same time period, Hassan submitted fraudulent reimbursement requests through the federal child nutrition program by claiming the agency served nearly 200,000 meals to children in one year, in which she requested $465,000 in reimbursements under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. The CEO of the nonprofit, Aimee Bock, was convicted in March of her crimes.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office referred to Hassan as the first person to face charges in the ongoing investigation into autism providers, the latest health care fraud conspiracy to see federal criminal charges in Minnesota. Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced charges in connection with another plot to steal hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from a Minnesota housing stability program that prosecutors say was “riddled with fraud.” Eight people are accused of billing the Housing Stabilization Services program for services that went unprovided, the indictment read. More charges are expected to come in the housing fraud case.

“To be clear, this is not an isolated scheme. 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. Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network. The challenge is immense, but our work continues,” acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said in a statement.

The Feeding Our Future case unearthed connections that led investigators to the autism provider fraud, search warrant affidavits said, which culminated in a federal raid of Smart Therapy Center and other providers last December.

Similar to the state’s housing program, the number of autism providers quickly grew over the years — from 41 in 2018 to 328 in 2023. Spending by Feeding Our Future also dramatically increased, from disbursing $3.4 million in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021.

Thompson previously called the fraud cases a “wholesale attack” on Minnesota’s programs that show the state’s system of trust for its social services no longer works.

“These programs have been abused over and over to the point where the fraud has overtaken the legitimate services,” he said.

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