August 18, 2026 09:00 AM PST
(PenniesToSave.com) – On Monday morning, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans described a set of charges that had been filed under seal the previous Thursday, August 13. [1] Five people now face criminal charges across two separate cases brought by two separate offices, and the thread running between them is money that came out of a public health program. [3]
Four defendants were charged in Hennepin County District Court. Frank Reeves, 57, Viktoriya Komonash, 30, Katherine Thomes, 36, and Andrea Sampson, 35, of Fridley, each face 13 counts of promoting prostitution of an individual and 13 counts of receiving profits from prostitution. [1][5] A fifth man, Salman Elmi, 30, was charged separately by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office with eight felony theft offenses. [3][4]
The number that links the two filings is $4.65 million, the total in claims that four businesses registered with the Minnesota Department of Human Services submitted to Medicaid between May 2023 and February 2026. [3]
One distinction governs everything that follows. Sampson, the former prosecutor, is not charged in the Medicaid case. Elmi, the businessman, is not charged in the Hennepin County case. Prosecutors allege the two are connected. They have not proven it, and none of these allegations has been tested in court. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless the state proves each element beyond a reasonable doubt. [5]
Quick Links
- What Do Prosecutors Say Was Billed to Medicaid?
- How Did a Sitting County Prosecutor End Up in a Criminal Complaint?
- Where Did the Money Move After It Left the Program?
- Why Does a Minnesota Case Matter to Households in Other States?
- What Happens Next in Both Cases?
What Do Prosecutors Say Was Billed to Medicaid?
Charging documents name four businesses: REVA Health, REVA Health Autism Center LLC, Helpful Housing LLC, and Homefelt Assisted Living LLC. All four were registered with the Minnesota Department of Human Services to bill under four separate programs, including Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services, Early Intensive Developmental Behavioral Intervention for autism, Housing Stabilization Services, and Home and Community-Based Services. Together, prosecutors say, those businesses submitted $4.65 million in claims to Medicaid over roughly three years. [3]
The Attorney General’s Office alleges that REVA Health alone billed more than $1 million for services that were never delivered or were not eligible for reimbursement. [4] The charges against Elmi center on the Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, in which workers are supposed to help people living with mental illness build the skills to live independently. [4] Prosecutors allege that documents were falsified to obtain payment, that recipients were paid illegal kickbacks in exchange for the personal information used to support false claims, that ineligible providers delivered services, and that supervision was claimed when little or none occurred.
Separate state billing records tell a wider story. Data provided to the Minnesota Star Tribune in March showed REVA Health had billed Medicaid nearly $2.9 million since 2024 for mental health services. [4] A different accounting placed roughly $2.5 million in billing across businesses tied to Reeves, Komonash, and Sampson. [2] Those figures cover overlapping entities and different windows, and they do not reconcile cleanly against the $4.65 million complaint total. [3]
It is worth separating two ideas that headlines tend to blur. A billing total is not a fraud total. Prosecutors allege that a portion of this money was obtained improperly, not all of it. The discipline involved is the same one that serves any household well when reviewing statements for charges nobody authorized, applied here to a program that moves billions.
How Did a Sitting County Prosecutor End Up in a Criminal Complaint?
Andrea Sampson worked in the Family Law and Civil Divisions of the Anoka County Attorney’s Office from 2017 through 2026, and charging documents state she was a full-time employee there while the operation was allegedly active. [3][5] On February 25, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension notified senior leadership in that office that Sampson was under criminal investigation. She was placed on administrative leave immediately, and her employment ended on March 9. [1][5] Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson said she was placed on leave and subsequently fired. [3]
The level of sophistication and victimization for profit is disturbing.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty [1]
There is a fact here that most coverage has left out, and it belongs in the record. The filed complaint contains no allegation that Sampson used her position as an assistant county attorney to prosecute any of the identified victims or to interfere with the investigation. [5] What prosecutors do allege is that she secured and provided locations where commercial sex transactions occurred, and that she created and maintained limited liability companies used to receive, move, or conceal proceeds. [1][3][5] The complaint identifies two Minneapolis properties tied to her, in the 3000 block of Harriet Avenue and the 2300 block of University Avenue Northeast. [4][5]
Charging documents further allege that Sampson was at one time a sex worker for Reeves. When that began, and whether it preceded or followed her hiring in Anoka County, is not established anywhere in the public record. [2][4]
Public trust in the offices that enforce the law is not a partisan matter. Institutions granted the authority to hold others accountable are fairly held to a higher standard themselves, and the county’s disclosed timeline is a legitimate part of what the public is entitled to weigh.
Where Did the Money Move After It Left the Program?
The allegation that separates coincidence from connection is a specific one. Prosecutors say the co-conspirators recruited sex trafficking victims to serve as employees or clients of the Medicaid providers, and promised kickbacks to victims who collected the personal information of Medicaid enrollees. [3] In that account, the two operations were not parallel. One fed the other.
Charging documents allege that one Minneapolis property used for commercial sex was converted in 2023 into Homefelt Assisted Living, and that the facility went on to bill Medicaid more than $500,000. Minnesota Secretary of State records list Sampson as the owner, with an address in Las Vegas. [4] The charges also allege that Reeves is a co-owner of Reva Health, and that Sampson held an ownership interest in Reva Autism and in Minneapolis properties promoted as assisted living facilities. [4] Payments were frequently collected in cash and later deposited into accounts connected to the business entities. [5]
State health regulators inspected two Homefelt facilities this year. A June inspection on University Avenue Northeast found four residents living there and identified substandard food preparation, infection control, and medication administration practices that inspectors rated unsafe but not severe. A March inspection at a facility on Adams Street Northeast, licensed in 2024, found a variety of unsafe care practices with three residents present. A third property on Harriet Avenue was never licensed as an assisted living facility at all, though court records suggest it was promoted that way. [4]
The existence of these businesses does not by itself establish criminal conduct. Their finances and their relationship to the defendants are allegations described in court records. [5]
Why Does a Minnesota Case Matter to Households in Other States?
Medicaid is funded jointly by federal and state taxpayers. Dollars billed in Hennepin County are not paid only by Minnesotans, which is why a state case of this size is properly a national story.
The scale question is the one worth sitting with. Minnesota’s Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program grew from 234 providers billing $63 million in 2018 to 531 providers billing nearly $190 million last year, according to state Department of Human Services data. [4] That is roughly triple the spending in seven years. The state itself classifies the program as one of 14 designated high risk for fraud. [4] The complaint also describes people connected to REVA Health tied to businesses billing through other vulnerable programs, including Housing Stabilization Services, which the state has since discontinued. [4]
It is illegal and it makes my blood boil.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison [4]
The timeline invites a fair question about oversight. The Department of Human Services once honored Elmi with an Outstanding Refugee Award for Entrepreneurship, a page since taken down from its website. [4] Payments to Reva and to several associated people and businesses were suspended in February 2026. [4] In May, the same department denied Elmi’s application for an addiction treatment license in Golden Valley, citing a search warrant indicating that a person named on the application was allegedly operating a sex trafficking organization. [4]
Rapid program expansion without matching verification capacity creates openings. That is an argument about administrative design, not about whether a safety net should exist. It also cuts both ways for the people these programs serve. Enrollees with mental illness, disabilities, or unstable housing lose first when money is diverted, and they lose again when a provider’s payments are suspended and services are disrupted, which is one practical reason building a cash buffer against benefit interruptions matters for anyone who depends on a program like this.
What Happens Next in Both Cases?
Three of the Hennepin County defendants appeared in court Monday afternoon. A judge set bail for Komonash and Sampson at $1 million, or $300,000 with conditions, and for Reeves at $1 million, or $500,000 with conditions. [3] Thomes was not listed in custody when charges were first reported and was set to appear Tuesday. [4][5] Elmi was held in lieu of $100,000 bail after a first appearance in Ramsey County District Court. [4]
More than 100 felony charges have now been filed against the four Hennepin County defendants, and all of the defendants have little or no criminal history in Minnesota. [4] Both Moriarty and Evans indicated the scope of the allegations could widen, and that more victims may not yet have come forward. [1][4]
Accounts of when the investigation began differ. The criminal complaint dates the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension inquiry to 2021. [5] The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that investigators had been interviewing victims since at least 2019. [4] Both figures appear in the public record and neither has been reconciled by prosecutors.
The investigation drew in the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Minnesota Human Trafficking Investigators Task Force, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and additional law enforcement partners. [5] Prosecutors carry the burden of proving every element of every count beyond a reasonable doubt, and none of these charges has yet been tested before a jury. [5]
Final Thoughts
Two things can be true here, and holding both is what separates a fair reading from a partisan one. Programs like Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services exist because people with serious mental illness need help staying housed and stable, and most providers billing them are doing legitimate work. At the same time, a program that triples in size in seven years while the state itself flags it as high risk for fraud is a program that has outgrown its own guardrails. [4]
What makes this case land differently is not the dollar figure. It is that one of the accused spent nine years working inside a county attorney’s office, and another was publicly celebrated by the very department that later suspended his payments. [4][5] Those are not indictments of an entire system. They are reminders that verification has to happen before the check clears, not after a five year investigation.
For now, the charges are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent. The next hearings will begin to test whether the state can prove what it has alleged, and the officials involved have already signaled that the list of defendants may not be final.
Works Cited
[1] WCCO Staff, and Jason Rantala. “Former Anoka Co. Assistant Attorney, 3 Others Charged for Running ‘Disturbing’ Sex Trafficking Ring, HCAO Says.” CBS News Minnesota, 17 Aug. 2026, www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/hennepin-county-attorney-bca-sex-trafficking-charges/.
[2] Hoggard, Corin. “$2.5M Medicaid Fraud Tied to Minneapolis Sex Trafficking Ring Involving Ex-Anoka County Prosecutor.” FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, 17 Aug. 2026, www.fox9.com/news/2-5m-medicaid-fraud-tied-minneapolis-sex-trafficking-ring-involving-ex-anoka-county-prosecutor.
[3] Cooper, Renée, and Kyle Brown. “Charging Documents Show Crossover between Sex Trafficking, Medicaid Fraud Schemes.” KSTP, 17 Aug. 2026, kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/county-attorney-more-victims-likely-in-sprawling-sex-trafficking-scheme/.
[4] Day, Jeff, et al. “Massive Minnesota Sex Trafficking Case Sprawls to Allege More than $1 Million in Medicaid Fraud.” The Minnesota Star Tribune, 17 Aug. 2026, www.startribune.com/mn-sex-trafficking-medicaid-fraud/601879533.
[5] Akaolisa, Tom. “Former Anoka County Assistant Attorney Charged with 26 Felonies in Alleged Commercial Sex Operation.” MinneapoliMedia, 15 Aug. 2026, minneapolimedia.town.news/g/coon-rapids-mn/n/384605/minneapolimedia-news-former-anoka-county-assistant-attorney-charged-26.