Prosecutions for corruption

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ZNP

ZNP

Well-known member
Sep 14, 2020
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We have been hearing for years now how all these people are going to be prosecuted, I figured we would want to keep track of actual prosecutions for corruption.

Heidi Beirich (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Arrested August 12, 2026, in a superseding federal indictment. Beirich, former director of SPLC's Intelligence Project (2012–2019), is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering. Prosecutors allege she helped oversee payments of donor funds to SPLC informants embedded in extremist groups, routed through accounts opened under fictitious company names without donors' knowledge. The indictment alleges she was in a romantic relationship with one informant ("F-9"), who had infiltrated the neo-Nazi group National Alliance, and that the two shared a bank account through which roughly $140,000 in donor funds moved between 2015 and 2021. That informant reportedly received more than $1.2 million from SPLC since 2007. Beirich's attorney has pushed back publicly, and she is due to be arraigned August 19. Case reported by CNN, NBC, PBS, and others.


Sylvia Luke (Hawaii Lieutenant Governor)
Indicted July 24–25, 2026, by an Oahu grand jury on 12 felony counts, including criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying campaign committee reports. The case centers on a 2022 episode, when Luke chaired the state House Finance Committee, in which businessman Tobi Solidum allegedly provided campaign contributions in connection with a COVID-19 testing contract. Reported figures on the bribe amount vary by outlet ($10,000 upfront with promises of more, or a $35,000 total figure). Four co-defendants were indicted alongside her, including Solidum, a former state representative, a state transportation official, and a former public utilities commission chair. Hawaii's governor has called on Luke to resign; she has denied wrongdoing and disputes the more expansive allegations.


Sheng Thao (former Oakland Mayor)
Indicted in January 2025 (not recent) on federal bribery, conspiracy, and mail/wire fraud charges, along with her partner Andre Jones and businessmen David and Andy Duong. Prosecutors allege that before and after her 2022 election, Thao agreed to use her position to benefit the Duongs' recycling and housing companies in exchange for benefits to herself and Jones, including a $75,000 mailer campaign against her opponents and a $300,000 no-show job arrangement for Jones. Andy Duong faces an additional count for allegedly lying to federal agents. All defendants have pleaded not guilty; a trial date has been set for later in 2026. Thao was recalled by Oakland voters in November 2024.
 
Based on current reporting, here's what's been prosecuted in Minnesota specifically tied to fraud at autism treatment/care centers (the EIDBI — Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention — Medicaid program):


1. Asha Farhan Hassan — Owner of Smart Therapy Center (Minneapolis). First person charged in the autism-fraud investigation (September 2025), accused of a $14 million scheme — enrolling children regardless of autism diagnosis, paying parent kickbacks, billing for services never provided. Pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in March 2026. She was separately also charged in connection with the Feeding Our Future pandemic food-aid fraud scheme (~$465,000).


2. Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf — Owner of Star Autism Center (opened in St. Cloud, 2020). Charged with a similar scheme — offering kickbacks to parents to enroll children regardless of medical necessity. Pleaded guilty to wire fraud.


3. Shamso Ahmed Hassan, 55, of Brooklyn Park — Shareholder in both Star Autism Center and Smart Therapy Center. Charged May 21, 2026 as part of a DOJ announcement calling it the largest Medicaid autism fraud case in U.S. history: a $46.6 million scheme (~$21.2 million actually paid out). Charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., false statements, and money laundering.


4. Hanaan Mursal Yusuf, 25, of Brooklyn Park — Worked for Smart Therapy Center. Charged alongside Shamso Ahmed Hassan on the same $46.6 million scheme, same set of charges.


A note on the pattern: These cases (along with related Minnesota fraud around child care, housing assistance, and elderly/disability services) grew out of the broader Feeding Our Future investigation. Federal officials allege the EIDBI autism program was heavily exploited as claims jumped from about $83 million (2021) to $443 million (2025) with minimal fraud safeguards. Prosecutors have said "more are on the way," so this list may not be final — no parents who allegedly received kickbacks have been charged as of the most recent reporting, though investigators have referenced that pattern in charging documents against the center owners.
 
Here's the roster of people prosecuted in the original Feeding Our Future food-aid fraud scheme (a $250 million scheme, separate from the later EIDBI autism cases), based on DOJ releases and ongoing court tracking. Note: prosecutors have brought charges against roughly 70 defendants total, with 65+ convictions as of mid-2026, so this list focuses on those with confirmed sentences plus a few other notable ones — it's not exhaustive of every single defendant.


Sentenced:


  1. Mohamed Jama Ismail — 12 years. Co-owned Empire Cuisine and Market; laundered funds through MZ Market LLC; pocketed $2.2 million.
  2. Mukhtar Shariff — 17.5 years. CEO of Afrique Hospitality Group, used it to launder over $1.3 million.
  3. Sharon Ross — 3.5 years. Executive director of House of Refuge food shelf; claimed 900,000 meals served, received $2.4 million.
  4. Sahra Nur — 4 years 3 months. Operated Academy for Youth Excellence shell company tied to S&S Catering; stole $5 million.
  5. Abdiaziz Farah — 38 years total (28 years initial + 10 years added for attempting to bribe a juror). Ringleader of the Empire Cuisine & Deli scheme; personally took ~$8 million of a $42 million haul.
  6. Khadar Adan — 1 year probation. Owner of JigJiga Business Center; let a fraudulent site operate there for a $1,000 kickback.
  7. Abdimajid Nur — 10 years. Part of the Empire Cuisine group; laundered ~$900,000 through Nur Consulting; also charged in the juror-bribery scheme (not yet sentenced for that).
  8. Abdul Abubakar Ali — 1 year. Co-ran Youth Inventors Lab, which claimed 1.3 million meals served but provided none; took in $3 million.
  9. Zamzam Jama — 6 months. Tied to Brava Restaurant's fraud; personally responsible for $491,245.
  10. Bekam Merdassa — 2 years probation. Used shell company Youth Investors Lab to claim 1.5 million meals; cooperated with prosecutors.
  11. Abdullahe Nur Jesow — 3.5 years. Ran Academy for Youth Excellence; ~$4.3 million received with S&S Catering.
  12. Yusuf Bashir Ali — 1.5 years. Enrolled shell company Youth Inventors Lab; stole nearly $280,000.
  13. Mulata Ali — 1 year probation. Let his company's bank account (Franklyn Transportation LLC) be used to launder over $2 million, for a ~$100,000 cut.
  14. Sharmake Jama — 1 year 4 months. Enrolled Brava Restaurant (Rochester); stole $5.3 million; sentence reduced for cooperating as a trial witness against Aimee Bock.
  15. Filsan Hassan — 3 years. Operated Youth for Higher Educational Achievement; over $2.5 million received.
  16. Aimee Bock — 41.6 years (500 months). Founder/executive director of Feeding Our Future itself; called the "epicenter" of the fraud by the sentencing judge; responsible for $242 million in fraud.
  17. Najmo Ahmed — 14 months. Co-owned Evergreen Grocery and Deli; $4.1 million in fraud, paid kickbacks to Abdikerm Eidleh.
  18. Asha Jama — 6 months. Worked for Brava Restaurant; ordered to repay $450,000.
  19. Mustafa Jama — 14 months. Also at Brava Restaurant and Cafe; ordered to repay $1.4 million.

Convicted at trial, not yet sentenced:


  • Salim Said — jointly tried with Aimee Bock, convicted (co-owner of Safari Restaurant).
  • Hayat Mohamed Nur — convicted at the original 2024 trial alongside Farah, Ismail, and Abdimajid Nur.

Recently pleaded guilty (per DOJ, April 2026):


  • Suleman Yusuf Mohamed — vendor (Star Distribution) supplying sites; guilty plea April 2, 2026.
  • Gandi Yusuf Mohamed — laundered ~$1.3 million of a co-defendant's proceeds via shell companies; agreed to pay it back.
 
This gives a strong, sourced list of the biggest nationwide COVID relief fraud cases (CBS News analysis of court/DOJ records, ranked by dollar loss). Here are the named individuals prosecuted:


1. Feeding Our Future (Minnesota) — ~$250 million
Already covered in detail in our earlier exchange (Aimee Bock, Abdiaziz Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, etc.) — the largest single pandemic-fraud scheme in the country.


2. Karnezis brothers — PPP loan scam — at least $109 million
Two Arizona brothers who pleaded guilty to submitting thousands of fraudulent PPP applications, some through the lender-service-provider Blueacorn, using falsified records and boilerplate certifications across many fake applicants.


3. Zishan Alvi — COVID-testing fraud — at least $83 million
Chicago-area lab owner who billed for COVID tests that were never performed or improperly conducted. Pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024; sentenced to 7 years.


4. Blueacorn — PPP lender-service-provider fraud — at least $63 million
Co-founder Stephanie Hockridge of Arizona pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years; auditors found roughly 1,600 applications with recycled identities and repetitive data.


5. Recycling-companies PPP loan ring — at least $53 million
14 people charged across Texas, California, and Oklahoma (2023) for running a nationwide fraud ring through purported recycling companies, using fabricated IRS documents and payroll logs — at least 29 fraudulent applications.


6. Robert Benlevi — California PPP fraud — at least $27 million
Created eight paper companies each claiming 100 employees; submitted 27 fraudulent applications to four banks. Convicted of bank fraud, false statements, and money laundering; sentenced to over 11 years.


7. Nationwide PPP/check-cashing network — at least $18 million
11 people across Texas and Illinois who filed 80+ PPP applications through unrelated shell businesses, faking and cashing payroll checks (some to relatives). Sought $35 million, received $18 million; some have pleaded guilty.


8. Joshua J. Bellamy (former NFL player) scheme — at least $17.4 million
Group of Ohio/Florida conspirators ran 90+ fraudulent PPP applications with templated language and identical employee lists. Bellamy personally received over $1.2 million, spent on jewelry and casino trips. Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 37 months.


9. Dinesh Sah — Texas PPP fraud — at least $17 million
Coppell, TX businessman who submitted 15 fraudulent applications seeking nearly $25 million; bought eight homes and six luxury vehicles (all seized). Sentenced to 11 years, ordered to pay $9 million restitution.


10. Sherry Joseph — NYC PPP loan scheme — at least $9.4 million
Recruited multiple people to apply for PPP loans using faked bank statements/payrolls in exchange for kickbacks — while already on pretrial release for separate federal fraud charges. Pleaded guilty in Florida federal court.



For scale context: DOJ's Pandemic Response Accountability Committee data cited by CBS shows over 50 people convicted/pleaded guilty just in the Feeding Our Future case alone, and nationally there have been 1,000+ indictments and 500+ convictions tied to PPP/EIDL fraud as of the SBA Inspector General's most recent report, plus a separate large body of unemployment-insurance fraud cases. CBS identified at least 20 total cases nationwide with losses over $1 million, and at least 9 over $10 million — the list above covers the top 10 by dollar value.
 
1. Foreign election interference


  • Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi & Sajjad Kashian (Iranian nationals) — Indicted November 2021 by DOJ for a cyber-enabled campaign to intimidate voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election: sending threatening emails impersonating the Proud Boys to Democratic voters, stealing over 100,000 voters' data from state websites, and attempting to hack a media company. Both remain at large in Iran; the U.S. State Department has offered a $10 million reward.

2. Campaign finance fraud tied to a federal race


  • George Santos — Former U.S. Representative (NY-3). Pleaded guilty in August 2024 to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Admitted to filing false reports with the FEC to inflate his 2022 campaign's fundraising numbers, stealing donors' credit card information for unauthorized charges, and fraudulently obtaining COVID unemployment benefits. Sentenced to 87 months in prison; ordered to pay over $373,000 in restitution. His campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to related conduct in 2023.

3. Ballot-stuffing / illegal voting tied to a federal election


  • Michael "Ozzie" Myers — Former U.S. Representative (PA-1, expelled in 1980 for the Abscam bribery scandal). Charged in 2020, pleaded guilty in 2022 to a scheme (2014–2018) bribing a Philadelphia election judge to stuff ballot boxes for favored candidates in primaries — including a charge of "conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election." Sentenced to 30 months in prison.

4. Post-2020-election subversion


  • "Fake electors" scheme — Mostly prosecuted at the state, not federal, level, but directly tied to the 2020 presidential election's certification. As of the most recent tracking: 11 fake electors plus 7 Trump aides/allies (including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows) charged in Arizona; 16 fake electors charged in Michigan; charges also brought in Georgia (19 defendants total in the Fulton County RICO case, including Trump, Giuliani, and Meadows) and Nevada. No charges were filed against the fake electors themselves in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (though those who transmitted Wisconsin's certificates were indicted).

5. Overturned on appeal (worth noting for completeness)


  • Douglass Mackey ("Ricky Vaughn") — Charged in January 2021 and convicted in 2023 for a conspiracy to deceive Hillary Clinton supporters into thinking they could vote by text in the 2016 election. Sentenced to 7 months. The Second Circuit unanimously overturned the conviction in July 2025, finding insufficient evidence he'd knowingly joined a conspiracy — an acquittal was entered. (Technically about the 2016 race, not 2020, but it's the most prominent federal voter-fraud prosecution of the era and worth flagging since the conviction didn't stand.)

6. Individual voter fraud (smaller-scale, tied to 2020 presidential ballots)
There's also a long tail of individual prosecutions for double-voting or voting in a deceased relative's name in the 2020 election (e.g., cases like Edward Snodgrass in Ohio, Frederick Gattuso, Tracey Kay McKee) — these are typically single-vote cases prosecuted at the state level even though the election affected was federal, and researchers who've cataloged them note they involve both parties' voters, with no cases anywhere near the scale needed to affect a federal outcome.
 
"Operation Never Say Die" — $60M Southern California hospice fraud sweep (April 2026), 15 charged, including:


  • Lolita Beronilla Minerd — licensed vocational nurse; operated Topanga Hospice Care Inc.; accused of billing Medicare over $9 million (2020–2025) for healthy patients falsely enrolled as terminally ill, paying cash kickbacks to recruit them.
  • Nita Almuete Paddit Palma and Adolfo Catbagan (married couple) — ran three Glendale hospice facilities (One Up, Rosewood, Advance Hospice); Palma was legally barred from the industry due to prior convictions; accused of billing $4.8 million for patients who weren't terminally ill.
  • Amelou Gill and Gladwin Gill (married couple) — co-owned 626 Hospice and St. Francis Palliative Care in Anaheim; accused of siphoning over $5.2 million, funding a lifestyle including international flights and luxury car/mortgage payments.
  • Sonia Griffen — of Lakewood; charged with defrauding the ILWU-PMA health plan through Bee Well Holistic Wellness Center, submitting nearly $5 million in fraudulent claims (~$2.5 million collected).
  • A group of four unnamed individuals accused of a $19 million fraudulent chiropractic/physical-therapy billing ring targeting union health plans.
  • Additional unnamed defendants tied to a Simi Valley "phantom patient" hospice and a Tarzana hospice with an implausibly high patient "survival rate."

2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown — Central District of California (June 2026), part of a 455-defendant nationwide sweep:


  • Oren David Shachar (Van Nuys), Abraham Shin (Corona), Jeannie Choi (Torrance) — 16-count indictment alleging conspiracy to defraud Medicare of ~$27 million through hospice billing.
  • Dr. Eugene Richard Dorsey (Orange, psychiatrist) — charged with health care fraud for falsifying psychiatric reports (Dec. 2020–Dec. 2025) to fraudulently qualify claimants for federal workers' compensation; ~$1.83 million in overpayments.
  • An unnamed hospice owner and two marketers charged separately in a $27.7 million scheme, which allegedly included buying identity information of recently deceased people from a funeral home employee to enroll fake "patients."
  • Additional defendants tied to a ~$270 million fraudulent Medi-Cal claims scheme (not federal Medicare, but charged in the same sweep).

Global Cardio Care case (Inglewood) — ~$135 million cardiac-testing fraud scheme:


  • Dr. Ronald Weaver (Pacific Palisades), Sara Soulati (Santa Monica), Dr. John Weaver (Alhambra), Dr. Ronald Carlish (Pacific Palisades), Dr. Howard Elkin (Whittier), Dr. Wolfgang Scheele (Los Angeles), Dr. Nagesh Shetty (Huntington Beach) — charged for allegedly performing medically unnecessary cardiac treatments/testing to bill Medicare.
  • Joseph S. Kieffer — marketer, charged alongside a defendant named "Vahedi" in a related kickback scheme paying commissions to marketers and patients for medically unnecessary referrals.
 
Overall federal human trafficking convictions by year (Bureau of Justice Statistics), all victims — adult and minor combined:


  • FY2019: 837 convicted
  • FY2020: 658 convicted (BJS attributes the drop partly to pandemic-related court closures)
  • FY2021: convictions fell for a third straight year per DOJ's own report to Congress (exact figure not isolated in what I found, but 1,197 were charged that year)
  • FY2022: 1,118 convicted
  • FY2023: DOJ reported convictions against 289 human traffickers (a different DOJ-internal count, not directly comparable to the BJS court-based figure — federal trafficking statistics use inconsistent methodologies year to year, which is a real limitation)

The minor-victim share specifically:
The Human Trafficking Institute's annual Federal Human Trafficking Report (the most detailed non-government tracker, reviewing every federal trafficking case since 2000) found that in new federal cases filed in 2021, minors made up 57% of victims identified, and 96% of defendants in sex trafficking cases that year were convicted of at least one count. Historically, cases involving child victims are somewhat easier to prosecute (age eliminates the "force, fraud, or coercion" element prosecutors otherwise must prove), so conviction rates for child-victim cases tend to run high once charged.


A rough estimate, given the data: If minors have consistently represented roughly half to 60% of trafficking victims in federal cases each year, and total federal convictions ran in the 650–1,100 range annually from 2020–2023, that would suggest very roughly 2,000–3,000 federal convictions involving at least one child victim across 2020–2023 — but I want to flag that this is my own extrapolation from partial figures, not a number any single source reports directly, and it excludes state-level convictions entirely (many trafficking cases, including many child sex trafficking cases, are prosecuted at the state level and aren't captured in these federal statistics at all).
 
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