Minnesota fraud: Authorities arrest suspect who jumped from balcony

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Authorities arrested a Minnesota fraud suspect who they say initially escaped arrest when he jumped from a fourth-floor balcony.

Muhammad Omar is one of 15 defendants accused of defrauding Minnesota programs out of a combined total of $90 million.

Law enforcement officials say he evaded arrest on Thursday morning, but was caught Thursday afternoon. 

READ MORE: Live updates: DOJ announces charges against 15 people for $90M in fraud

MN fraud suspect on the run from the feds

What they're saying:

FBI officials said they attempted to arrest Omar on Thursday morning before a news conference announcing federal charges related to Minnesota fraud.

Omar allegedly escaped when he jumped from a fourth-floor balcony.

Authorities say they arrested him around 3 p.m. Thursday.

Dig deeper:

Court records show Omar is charged with a count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and four counts of health care fraud.

Prosecutors say he worked with another man, Ibrahim Bashir Abdi, to create North Home Health Care and Omar opened another company, South Home Health Care. The companies were registered with Minnesota's Housing Stabilization program.

Authorities say the men would falsify and inflate the number of service hours provided by North Home. Officials say some of the patients they were reportedly caring for were actually hospitalized and others were dead. Omar and Abdi pocketed $3.2 million based on those false claims. Omar received an additional $480,000 through claims from South Home.

Charges say the men also sent some of the money overseas to buy property in Kenya.

15 people facing charges

The backstory:

Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said a grand jury handed up an indictment charging 15 people for fraud that targeted over $90 million in taxpayer dollars.

The fraud targeted seven Medicaid programs, including Minnesota's Housing Stabilization program, the autism program, Integrated Community Support, and the state's Individualized Home Supports program.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Oz blasted Minnesota for programs that got out of control.

Sec. Kennedy highlighted how budgets for many programs exploded during the pandemic.

"This was the cost of the early intervention development program in 2020. It was $38.1 million. This is what we expected to be paying every year," explained Sec. Kennedy. "Instead, this year it hit $442 million. ... [That's] the magnitude of the fraud and the damage that we're talking about today."

"It got so out of hand, that there was panic setting in," said Dr. Oz. "It was at that point that we re-engaged the process and realized there were programs that had been created here with massive spending that had increased so rapidly that there's no way to save the program."

Assistant Attorney Colin McDonald also referenced the Housing Stabilization program, which started with a budget of $2.5 million but ended up at almost 50 times that budget at $104 million by 2024. The state ultimately terminated the program last year.

Dr. Oz also highlighted testimony from Faye Bernsetein, a former Minnesota DHS employee, who said there was a fear of being accused of racism if they took action on fraud complaints. Bernstein testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing on Minnesota fraud.