Two Philadelphia-based men accused of traveling to Minneapolis after a friend told them the taxpayer-funded programs there presented “a good opportunity to make money,” pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Monday, court records show.
Anthony Waddell Jefferson and Lester Brown were accused of siphoning millions from federally funded programs administered by Minnesota officials that were meant to help the disabled and those suffering from addiction, according to court filings. They allegedly fleeced the housing program in Minnesota despite “living on the other side of the country and having no network in or connections to Minnesota or its communities,” the filings stated.
Sentencing has not been scheduled for either man.
Jefferson owned a company named Chozen Runner in Pennsylvania, but around Feb. 2022, on the advice of a friend, he registered the company in Minnesota. Lester Brown registered his company Retsel Real Estate in Minnesota during the same period. The men did so, court documents said, to defraud Housing Stabilization Services (“HSS”) program, a Medicaid program designed to help people with disabilities and addictions find and maintain housing.
The pair reached out to clients by marketing themselves at shelters and at Section 8 housing facilities in Minnesota as “The Housing Guys.” They operated their companies out of downtown office space in Minneapolis, while traveling back and forth from Minnesota to Philadelphia.
Jefferson, court documents said, generated fake documentation to submit bills and hired family members and others to work for Chozen Runner. Some of the messages were written by ChatGPT, court documents said, and both men made up records and submitted documentation for items to HSS that did not always occur. They submitted inflated figures and helped each other’s companies by consulting each other’s clients.
The duo claimed entitlement to approximately $3,568,171 in HSS Program payments, court documents said.
Federal prosecutors have been looking into large-scale fraud in several Minnesota programs ever since dozens were indicted and convicted starting in 2022 in the Feeding Our Future scandal, which saw the theft of $250 million in taxpayer funds meant to feed children in need. A top prosecutor suggested that the total amount of fraud in Minnesota could be $9 billion or more.
