Attorney General Ellison charges one with $7.3M in Medicaid fraud prosecution

Today, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that his office has charged Chavis Willis with racketeering and five felony counts of theft by swindle.  Willis was previously convicted of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and therefore barred from owning, managing, or operating any Medicaid-funded business. However, according to an investigation Attorney General Ellison’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit conducted, Willis used a Medicaid-funded business, 1-0 Granny’s Helpful Hands LLC, which claimed to provide home and community based services (HCBS) and PCA services to Medicaid recipients throughout Minnesota, to bilk the Medicaid program out of over $7.3 million. Attorney General Ellison alleges Willis billed for services not provided and for services rendered at an agency operated by a provider with Willis’ prior convictions.

“When criminals defraud Medicaid, they are stealing money that should be providing health care to folks who are struggling financially,” said Attorney General Ellison. “My office has a long record of success in holding Medicaid fraudsters accountable for cheating taxpayers and people in need, and we will keep doing so.”

“Providers who submit false claims and falsify records for personal gain do real harm to our federal health care programs and the beneficiaries that these programs serve,” said Mario M. Pinto, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Chicago Region. “HHS-OIG, working together with our state law enforcement partners, is committed to ensuring that our taxpayer funded health care programs are protected against fraud.”

On paper, Granny’s was owned by Willis’ mother, Raynell Finn, who lived in California. The investigation found that Finn was minimally involved in operating the business, while Willis controlled all agency operations. Willis repeatedly and falsely represented to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) that his mother owned the business, including forging his mother’s signature on documents and impersonating his mother in phone calls and correspondence with DHS.  DHS would not have reimbursed any funds paid to Granny’s had it known that Willis was operating the business.

While controlling the business, Willis hired a biller with whom he was in a romantic relationship and who had prior identity theft and other felony convictions that prohibited her from working as a biller at a Medicaid-funded business.  While the biller worked at Granny’s and Willis operated it, Granny’s regularly billed for services not provided to Medicaid recipients.  At one point, the biller began serving a jail sentence for her prior identity theft conviction; Willis impersonated his mother on a call with jail staff to ensure the biller was authorized for work release to continue working at 1-0 Granny’s Helpful Hands. The biller has since pled guilty to felony theft by false representation for her role in the scheme.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

This case was the product of a joint investigation by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) in the Office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (DHHS/OIG), with substantial assistance from the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Forensic Lab.  The Minnesota MFCU in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case.

Attorney General Ellison’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit works to uncover, investigate, and prosecute individuals or organizations that steal from Medicaid. The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit receives 75% of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $4,409,872 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2025.  The remaining 25%, totaling $1,469,955 for FY 2025, is funded by the State of Minnesota.