A Rochester woman is charged with wrongfully obtaining public assistance after investigators say she failed to report who lived in her home, resulting in overpayments the complaint lists at more than $75,000 since 2019.
Michelle Miller, 56, is charged in Olmsted County District Court with 14 counts of wrongfully obtaining assistance by false statements in a complaint filed Oct. 26.
According to the complaint, a Rochester police detective was assigned in March to look into a welfare fraud report dating to 2010. Olmsted County investigators told him Miller had applied for food assistance, the Minnesota Family Investment Program, child care assistance and emergency assistance and may have given false information about her employment, her children’s jobs, her son’s Social Security benefits and who lived in her household. They called household makeup the most important issue.
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The complaint says Miller listed an adult man as her husband on a 2015 application and kept reporting him and his income until February 2017, when she reported he had moved out. It says the two bought a Northwest Rochester home in October 2017 and still live there. Had his income been counted, she would have been ineligible or received far less, the complaint says.
Investigators said the man has had the same employer since 2005 and gave the home as his address when he was rehired in late 2019. Police contacted him there seven times between 2021 and 2025. A pole camera outside the home in March showed both of his vehicles parked there and one used daily, with him leaving around 5 a.m. and returning around 7 p.m., the complaint says.
Miller was arrested at the home on August 7. After being read her rights, she told the detective three adult children live there and contribute to expenses and that she does not report the oldest child’s income. She said the man stays with her from time to time but not full time, then agreed he is at the house frequently and that she could not lie about it, according to the complaint. She said she had too much on her plate and needed to feed her children and have health coverage.
The complaint lists overpayments in six-month periods from December 2019 through June 2026, ranging from $1,267 to more than $10,600 a period.
