Friday’s 62 months already ran. Friday’s 14 years already ran. This is Saturday’s unused Minnesota verdict.
U.S. Department of Justice, Thursday Oct. 8: a federal jury in St. Paul convicted Sharmaine Meadows, 45, of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, yesterday on three counts of health care fraud. The office said she ran a scheme to steal $3.6 million from Minnesota’s now-defunct Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program, billed for hours meant to house people and keep them housed that were not actually provided. The program paid her company over $3.6 million between 2020 and 2025 into accounts she exclusively controlled. Sentencing is later. She faces a maximum of 10 years on each count. That ceiling is not a sentence. $3.6 million is not Loftis’s $30 million billed. A verdict without months is not Ramirez’s 62.
Same DOJ file: the program let providers bill up to 150 hours for transitional services and 150 hours for sustaining services per eligible beneficiary. Meadows told staff to maximize to that cap even when the hours were never worked. The trial evidence: claims for in-person hours by employees who were in Illinois and the Philippines, where she paid $6.00 an hour and offered no benefits; claims while beneficiaries were in the hospital; and billing that treated employees as working more than 20 hours a day, every day, for weeks. Beneficiaries testified they got little or no help, then were told they had run out of hours. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald said the fraud — and others like it — forced the program to shut down after costs outran estimates by four thousand percent. U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen: she chose to take millions from a program meant for vulnerable Minnesotans. FBI Minneapolis, HHS-OIG, and IRS-CI investigated. A jury verdict is not a term. We will not reprint Barron or Iley as first-day news.
What this means for you
If you needed Friday’s unused crime, those terms still stand as Ramirez, 62 months, and Loftis, 14 years. If you needed Saturday noon’s unused paper, it is Meadows, convicted, $3.6 million paid, no sentence yet. If the week is too heavy, 988.
Bottom line: Convicted. $3.6 million paid. Sentence later. Not Ramirez 62. Not Loftis 14.
GLHR NEWS explains the news. Not investment, tax, or trading advice. Do your own work before you act.
