(The Center Square) – A Minnesota court has ordered a man to pay nearly $2.5 million in damages, penalties and legal fees after a jury found he submitted nearly 100,000 fraudulent reimbursement claims to a taxpayer-funded program.
The judgment against Emadeldin Ibrahim was announced earlier this month and stems from a civil, not criminal, case brought by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office under the Minnesota False Claims Act.
As a result of that case, a Hennepin County District Court judge ordered Ibrahim to pay $2,481,310.08 following an April jury verdict that found he knowingly submitted false claims for reimbursement through the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Ibrahim submitted $188,350.82 in fraudulent reimbursement requests to the Minnesota Department of Education in just three months in 2021, according to the attorney general’s office.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison applauded the judgement.
“Emadeldin Ibrahim stole our tax dollars while pretending to feed hungry children during a pandemic,” Ellison said in a statement announcing the ruling. “Thanks to this $2.5 million judgment, Mr. Ibrahim will be paying back the people of Minnesota for quite some time.”
After a four-day trial, a jury found Ibrahim liable of submitting 90,636 false claims related to meals and snacks that were either not served to children or did not comply with federal program requirements.
Under state law, the court awarded damages totaling $565,052.52. The court also imposed $1,695,157.56 in civil penalties and $221,100 in attorney fees and court costs. Just the civil penalties alone are nine times the total amount of false claims Ibrahim submitted.
“The severity of the damages and penalties the court awarded should be wake-up call to anyone even thinking about defrauding the State of Minnesota,” Ellison said. “Not only will you face criminal consequences, but the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office will pursue you under civil law to recover Minnesota taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”
While the state has secured the nearly $2.5 million judgement, it is unclear if Ibrahim has sufficient assets to satisfy it.
The Center Square reached out to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to clarify how it expects to recover those funds.
“The state is currently in the process of gathering information on Mr. Ibrahim’s financial position,” Brian Evans, press secretary for the office, told The Center Square in an interview.
Evans added that the state has multiple legal tools available to collect the judgment and intends to pursue repayment aggressively.
“The state has 10 years to collect on a judgment, and the judgment may be renewed if it is not fully satisfied within that time,” Evans said. “The state is committed to using the tools and time at its disposal to collect on this judgment.”
Evans said that the state has already recovered about $107,000 of the $188,000 originally paid to Ibrahim.
However, collecting court-ordered repayments in fraud cases can be a lengthy and complicated process.
A recent FOX 9 investigation found that less than 18% of the more than $13.3 million in restitution ordered in 48 cases prosecuted by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit since 2020 has been recovered. According to the report, nearly $11 million remains outstanding.
Despite the civil verdict and the size of the judgment, Ibrahim has also not been criminally charged in connection with the case.
When asked about that, Evans said:
“The authority of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is almost exclusively civil, rather than criminal, and the Minnesota False Claims Act is purely civil in nature,” he explained. “I recommend directing this question to the United States Attorney’s Office.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota told The Center Square Monday afternoon that it currently does not have any comment on this case but will update “if anything changes.”
