Asha Farhan Hassan: Autism Billing Fraud, Guilty Plea, and Sentencing

Asha Farhan Hassan is a Minneapolis woman who pleaded guilty on December 18, 2025, to one count of wire fraud for her role in a $14 million scheme to defraud Minnesota’s Medicaid-funded autism services program. She was 28 when charged, owned and operated Smart Therapy LLC, and became the first defendant charged in what federal authorities have described as a sprawling investigation into fraudulent billing within the state’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) program. Under her plea agreement, she agreed to pay nearly $16 million in restitution and faces a prison term of roughly 70 to 87 months.¹

The Charge and the Guilty Plea

Federal prosecutors in the District of Minnesota filed a criminal information against Hassan on September 24, 2025, charging her with wire fraud tied to her operation of Smart Therapy LLC. The case was assigned to Judge David Singleton Doty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota under case number 0:25-cr-00366.²

Less than three months later, she pleaded guilty. The plea agreement covers a single wire fraud count and contemplates a federal prison sentence of between 70 and 87 months, along with nearly $16 million in restitution to the federal government. Hassan remained free and out of custody pending sentencing, which had not been scheduled as of her plea date.¹

How the Autism Billing Scheme Worked

Hassan registered Smart Therapy LLC in November 2019 and listed herself as the sole owner, though prosecutors say others held undisclosed ownership stakes. One of those silent partners had previously been excluded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) for running a fraudulent adult daycare center. The company then enrolled as a provider in the EIDBI program, which pays for autism therapy for children.³

On paper, Smart Therapy provided one-on-one Applied Behavior Analysis therapy. In practice, prosecutors alleged, the center staffed itself with unqualified teenagers, often relatives of the owners, and used them as behavioral technicians. Hassan and her associates worked with Qualified Supervising Professionals to get children diagnosed and approved for services regardless of medical necessity, then billed Medicaid for the maximum allowable hours whether or not treatment actually occurred.³

To keep children flowing into the program, Hassan recruited families from the Somali community and paid parents monthly cash kickbacks of $300 to $1,500 per child, scaled to the authorization level DHS had granted. Claims submitted for reimbursement included fraudulent signatures from supervising professionals who either did not work at Smart Therapy, were out of the country, or had never signed off on the services being billed.³

Through this arrangement, Smart Therapy collected more than $14 million in reimbursements from Minnesota DHS and the managed-care organization UCare.³

The Feeding Our Future Piece

The charging document also tied Hassan to the separate Feeding Our Future fraud. In July 2020 she enrolled Smart Therapy in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit led by Aimee Bock that the government later alleged operated as a conduit for massive fraud.³

Hassan initially claimed to serve 300 children daily in 2020, then escalated her figures to roughly 1,200 meals per day by April 2021. Prosecutors alleged she submitted fake meal counts, fabricated attendance rosters, and invoices from a purported vendor called “S & S Catering.” Between 2020 and 2021, she claimed to have served nearly 200,000 meals and collected approximately $465,000 in federal nutrition funds.³

Where the Money Went

Hassan used a share of the proceeds to send hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad, including for the purchase of real estate in Kenya, according to federal authorities.³⁴

Who Investigated Her

The case was built through a joint federal and state effort. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General led the investigation, with help from the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit inside Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office. Investigators conducted interviews, analyzed data, reviewed evidence, and executed search warrants at multiple locations in December 2024.⁵

Ellison said he was “proud of the work my office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit did to help secure today’s criminal charges.” The unit runs on a federal-state partnership, with the federal government covering 75 percent of its roughly $5.9 million annual budget.⁵

Sentencing and Current Status

As of her December 2025 plea, Hassan remains free pending sentencing. Her plea agreement calls for between 70 and 87 months of federal prison time and nearly $16 million in restitution. No sentencing date has been publicly set.¹

Where Her Case Fits in the Larger Crackdown

Hassan was the first person charged in the federal investigation into the EIDBI program, but she was not the last. On May 21, 2026, the Department of Justice announced criminal charges against 15 individuals in Minnesota tied to more than $90 million in Medicaid fraud, an action Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called “the largest autism fraud bust in American history.”⁶

That later sweep included an indictment against Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf of Brooklyn Park, who were accused of submitting $46.6 million in fraudulent EIDBI claims, of which $21.1 million was reimbursed. Shamso Ahmed Hassan was identified as a shareholder in two autism centers, Smart Therapy Center and Star Autism Center, and Yusuf worked as a Level II EIDBI provider at Smart Therapy Center. The file does not establish a public family relationship between Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Asha Farhan Hassan.⁷ On the same day those charges were announced, Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock was sentenced to nearly 42 years in federal prison for her role in the separate $250 million child nutrition fraud scheme.⁸

Federal prosecutors have said that more than $1 billion in taxpayer money has been stolen across three investigated fraud plots in Minnesota, with 59 individuals convicted so far.⁹

1
FOX 9. Woman Pleads Guilty to Autism Services, Feeding Our Future Frauds
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CourtListener. United States v. Hassan
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U.S. Department of Justice. First Defendant Charged in Autism Fraud Scheme
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HHS Office of Inspector General. First Defendant Charged in Autism Fraud Scheme
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Minnesota Attorney General. AG Ellison Partners With Federal Law Enforcement in Medicaid Fraud Charges Against Asha Hassan
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NBC News. Minnesota Medicaid Fraud Charges Autism
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U.S. Department of Justice. Minnesota HCF Case Summaries
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MPR News. Minnesota Fraud Charges From Trump Administration
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The New York Times. Fraud Minnesota Somali