A St. Paul man who ran a housing assistance company has pleaded guilty to wire fraud after prosecutors said he billed Minnesota's now-defunct Housing Stabilization Services program for as much as $750,000 while claiming to serve 100 beneficiaries who, in many cases, weren't getting the help he billed for.
Hassan Ahmed Hussen operated Pristine Health LLC out of St. Paul, according to CBS News, which reports he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. The outlet, citing the Justice Department, says Hussen and an alleged co-conspirator, Ahmed Abdirashid Mohamed, billed up to $750,000 through Pristine Health while claiming to serve 100 different beneficiaries.
According to the same report, Hussen submitted the paperwork to both the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Department of Human Services to register Pristine Health as an HSS provider, then used that standing to submit false claims and overrepresent the services the company actually delivered. Hussen and Mohamed allegedly fabricated housing plans with other providers and hunted down new beneficiaries whose names Pristine Health could attach to its billing, the report states.
Money Allegedly Funded a World Tour
Court documents cited by the station say the pair used program funds for personal travel, taking trips to London, Sydney, Dubai, Istanbul and Saudi Arabia. Hussen currently has no scheduled sentencing date, per the same account.
The Minnesota Attorney General's Office had already moved against the pair months earlier. In a December 18, 2025 announcement, the office identified Hassan Ahmed Hussein and Ahmed Abdirashim Mohamed — spellings that differ slightly from the CBS report's Hussen and Abdirashid — as the owners of Pristine Health LLC and announced federal charges against them. It is not clear from available records whether Mohamed has since pleaded guilty, been convicted, or been sentenced.
A Program Built to Help, Undermined by Fraud
Housing Stabilization Services was a Medical Assistance benefit meant to help people with disabilities and seniors find and keep stable housing, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services. But the Attorney General's Office said in its December announcement that HSS providers frequently billed for the maximum amount of authorized services while delivering only a minimal amount — or none at all.
The program ended for good at 11:59 p.m. on October 31, 2025, the Department of Human Services says, and the agency has confirmed it will not enroll or reimburse any provider for HSS services delivered after that cutoff. State lawmakers have since begun the process of formally codifying that termination into law, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The Hussen case followed tightened scrutiny of the program. Enrollment and ownership-change requests submitted on or after June 1, 2025, faced high-risk screening, including unannounced site visits and fingerprint background checks for any owner holding at least 5% of a provider company, per the Department of Human Services. Providers were also required to complete annual vulnerable-adult training and pass criminal background checks, with front-line staff required to finish specified training within 30 days of starting work.
Part of a Broader Fraud Crackdown
The investigation into Hussen and Mohamed drew on the Minnesota Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit working alongside the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, the Attorney General's Office said. The office also noted that any indictment is merely an allegation and that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Pristine Health case is far from isolated. Four other men — Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmed Dayib and Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed — pleaded guilty in a separate HSS fraud scheme that totaled about $2.2 million, according to WFMZ, which reports that group signed up roughly 350 people for services that were never actually provided. That outlet also reports the federal government has frozen more than $200 million in Medicaid funds to Minnesota, amid estimates that fraud statewide totals somewhere between $9 billion and $20 billion.
WFMZ notes that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota and the Justice Department's Health Care Fraud Strike Force say they intend to keep working to combat what they've called prolific fraud on government programs across the state. Separately, KSTP's ongoing coverage of the HSS fraud cases has tracked at least one other defendant, among eight originally charged, who has taken a plea deal.
