A federal jury in Saint Paul convicted a Lake Elmo woman on Oct. 7 of health care fraud in a scheme that prosecutors said took $3.6 million from a Minnesota Medicaid housing program.
Sharmaine Meadows, 45, of Lake Elmo, was convicted of three counts of health care fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota said in a news release on Oct. 8. The trial was before U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, according to the release.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Meadows billed Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program, a Medicaid program that has since shut down, for housing services that were not provided. The services were meant to help people without housing move into a home and keep it, the office said.
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The program allowed providers to bill up to 150 hours for transitional services and 150 hours for sustaining services for each eligible Medicaid beneficiary, the office said. Prosecutors said Meadows routinely told her employees they were required to bill up to the 150-hour cap, even if the hours of service were never provided.
Evidence presented at trial showed that Meadows and her company billed the program for in-person hours attributed to employees who were in other states, such as Illinois, and in other countries, such as the Philippines, according to the office.
A data analysis showed billing as if her employees were working more than 20 hours a day, every day, for weeks, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Meadows also submitted claims for services that could not have been provided because the beneficiaries were in the hospital. Medicaid beneficiaries testified that they received little to no services from her company, the office said.
According to the office, the program paid Meadows’ company more than $3.6 million between 2020 and 2025, into accounts that only Meadows controlled. The FBI and two other federal agencies investigated, the office said.
Meadows is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count, the office said. A federal judge will determine any sentence, the office said.
