Feeding Our Future: autism clinic connections
Deena Winter of MN Reformer names five names in a report today linking Feeding Our Future defendants with state-funded autism clinics. She reports:
Five of the 70 defendants in the massive federal Feeding Our Future fraud case had ties to Medicaid-funded autism centers, at least two of which continue to operate today, state records show.
The FBI is investigating possible Medicaid fraud in Minnesota’s autism program, the Reformer reported last month.
She names Defendant Nos. 14, 24, 30, 36, and 45. All but No. 14 (Abdirahman Ahmed) have already pled guilty (Nos. 1, 6, 13 and 14) in the Feeding Our Future case.
Winter notes that one of the guilty pleas, Bekam Merdassa (Defendant No. 45 and Guilty Plea No. 1) operated a clinic named Epic Therapy located on University Avenue in St. Paul.
We visited the location more than two years ago, which was enrolled as a distribution site in the free-food program, with a listed capacity to feed up to 8,500 children per day.
(Yours truly reflected in the window, above).
Over the course of the Feeding Our Future scandal, other autism-clinic-related names and addresses have come up, either as campaign donors or food distribution sites. To date, none of these persons or corporate entities have been charged or accused of any wrongdoing.
In other news, earlier this month, the federal court has denied the overseas travel requests of two other Feeding Our Future defendants.
Ayan Jama (Defendant No. 40) had asked for permission to travel to Kenya. Her request was denied.
Gandi Abdi Kediye, f/k/a Gandi Yusuf Mohamed (Defendant No. 69), was denied permission to undertake a multi-continent trip. The court noted:
He wants to travel to Kenya to supervise his farms in light of his general manager leaving and the corruption in Kenya; Somalia to secure contracts for his and other farms that export crops to Somalia; and India to continue in vitro fertilization
treatment.
Gandi’s original travel request contemplated a four-month journey.