- A Minnesota daycare center owner pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy.
- The woman was charged with fraud totaling $5.4 million.
- Others have also been convicted of fraud amid the government’s crackdown.
A Minnesota daycare owner who was at the center of a viral video has pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud.
Read more Lawsuit alleges Forest Service overhaul is cover for massive workforce downsizing
Fahima Mahamud pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud and a count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. The charges said she took in $850,000 fraudulently as part of a Feeding Our Future scheme. Its founder and executive director, Aimee Bock, has been sentenced to 500 months in prison. She has appealed both her sentence and conviction, according to CBS News.
Per the charges, Mahamud also separately filed $4.6 million in claims through the Child Care Assistance Program.
Per CBS News, “Dozens of others have been convicted in connection with what prosecutors have called the largest pandemic fraud case in the country.”
Federal prosecutors also alleged that Mahamud tried to flee the U.S. after notifying Minnesota that she had closed the daycare.
A viral video
A viral YouTube investigation by Utah-based YouTuber Nick Shirley alleged millions in taxpayer-funded fraud. As Deseret News reported, in the video, he went door-to-door at taxpayer-funded daycares, “asking adults if any children were present and what they thought about the allegations of fraud.” The video quickly became one of the most viewed videos on X, seen more than 131 million times, according to NPR.
The video was not mentioned in the plea agreement or the affidavit, per Newsweek.
The video came amid and added fuel to an announced fraud crackdown throughout government-funded programs by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump put Vice President JD Vance in charge of rooting out programs and services that defraud U.S. taxpayers. Among others, anti-fraud efforts are reportedly looking at Medicaid and Medicare programs, daycares and others.
Read more An old rival is lending an 11th-century tapestry to England
Newsweek reported that Future Leaders was an enrollee in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s child nutrition program starting as early as 2018, based on the government’s affidavit. Feeding Our Future, the program Bock led, had sponsored Mahamud’s daycare in the program until at least June 2021.
The article said the claims were initially “modest.” But in December 2020, the claims “ballooned,” and the center purported to serve meals to more than 1,000 children a day. By February 2021, Future Leaders was claiming to serve almost 60,000 meals to children a month.
Another guilty plea
KTTC News in Rochester similarly reported that another daycare owner, Jillaine Mertens, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with now-closed daycares she operated in Minnesota.
She was charged in May with defrauding the Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program at her centers in Kasson, Rochester and Ramsey, for a total of $426,382 in taxpayer money.
Per KTTC, “Federal court documents show between November 2024 and May 2025, Mertens inflated hours worked by staff and falsely submitted applications for at least 23 employees who did not work for her business.”
She has not been sentenced, but entered a plea agreement that means she faces up to 20 years in prison, court-determined restitution and fines of up to $250,000.
In June, Deseret News reported that the FBI and Department of Justice had charged 455 people for alleged health care fraud that was believed to total $6.5 billion.
Read more Campground evacuated, reservoir closed after fire breaks out in American Fork Canyon