How a California crook committed $178 million worth of health care fraud — in just one year



A California man pleaded guilty on Monday to stealing millions of dollars in taxpayer funds through his participation in a prescription drug fraud scheme, the Department of Justice reported.

Paul Richard Randall, a 66-year-old man from Orange County, has admitted to submitting nearly $270 million in fraudulent claims to Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, from May 2022 to April 2023.

'This guilty plea should send a message that this administration — consistent with the president’s war on fraud — will not turn a blind eye while criminals fleece taxpayers.'

As part of his plea agreement, Randall confessed that he and his alleged accomplices took advantage of Medi-Cal by exploiting a policy change. The government program suspended the requirement for health care providers to obtain prior authorization before delivering services and medications for reimbursement while transitioning its prescription drug program to a new payment system.

Randall billed Medi-Cal millions of dollars each month for dispensing high-reimbursement, non-contracted, generic drugs through a pharmacy, including some pain medications. One such medication was Folite tablets, a vitamin available over the counter.

The DOJ contended that of the $270 million billed, Medi-Cal paid more than $178 million for 19 drugs that were either medically unnecessary, not provided to the patients, or both.

The funds provided by Medi-Cal were laundered to a third party to pay kickbacks to Randall and his alleged co-schemers.

RELATED: Vance's task force shutters 221 hospices in 'fraud king' Gavin Newsom's California

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Randall has been in federal custody since June 2025 and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. He faces up to 30 years in prison. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 3.

One of Randall’s accomplices, Kyrollos Mekail, a 37-year-old from Moreno Valley, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to two counts of health care fraud. Mekail is awaiting sentencing.

A second alleged co-conspirator is charged with two counts of health care fraud.

RELATED: The Medicaid fraud problem is not going away

J. David Ake/Getty Images

“This defendant used a public health program as his personal piggy bank,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said of Randall. “This guilty plea should send a message that this administration — consistent with the president’s war on fraud — will not turn a blind eye while criminals fleece taxpayers.”

“Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Department, working closely with the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, is supercharging efforts to take down every fraudster and bring them to justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

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Democrat fraudster begs to keep $800,000 state pension funded by taxpayers



A disgraced former lawmaker in Massachusetts is still hoping that taxpayers will help keep him comfortable in his retirement years, despite his criminal convictions.

In February 2021, Democratic ex-state Rep. David Nangle, who represented the Lowell area for two decades and even sat as vice chair of the House Ethics Committee for a time, pled guilty to nearly two dozen charges related to stealing money from his campaign for personal expenses, defrauding banks, and failing to report income to the IRS.

It was 'only because he had been a member of the House of Representatives at the relevant time that he was in a position to illegally withdraw funds from his campaign account.'

According to the Boston Globe, Nangle stole $70,000 from his campaign and defrauded banks of over $300,000 in ill-begotten loans. Nangle has admitted that he has a gambling addiction, but prosecutors claimed that in addition to blowing money at the casino, he also spent money on luxury items and other personal expenses.

Nangle was sentenced to 15 months but served only about five months of that sentence behind bars.

The scandal also cost him his political career. Nangle was successfully primaried in September 2020 after 22 years in the seat.

After his conviction, the Massachusetts State Retirement Board decided to revoke the state pension he had accrued during his time in office, valued at over $800,000. A district court judge later upheld that decision.

RELATED: 38-year-old Democrat found dead, wrapped in 'blankets and black garbage bags' — and now all eyes are on her husband

Barry Chin/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Nangle filed an appeal in Suffolk County Superior Court last week, requesting a review of "a judgment entered by the Lowell District Court, which affirmed the Defendant State Board of Retirement's forfeiture of David M. Nangle's vested state retirement allowance."

Nangle has argued that his crimes were in "no way" related to his work in public office and that the stolen money did not involve "governmental funds or property," the Globe said.

The retirement board and Lowell District Court Judge Pacinco DeCapua don't seem to be buying it. According to the Globe, DeCapua even noted it was "only because he had been a member of the House of Representatives at the relevant time that he was in a position to illegally withdraw funds from his campaign account."

Nangle, 65, has also claimed that he will be "destitute" without the pension, but the Globe, citing DeCapua's ruling in January, reported that Nangle was working three jobs, collecting $6,000 a month for just one of them.

DeCapua, who acknowledged Nangle's "road of redemption" regarding addiction, nonetheless determined that his actions "dishonored his title as a State Representative."

Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance seems to agree. He told Blaze News in a statement: "A bank robber doesn't get to keep his steal after he is convicted, and a state lawmaker shouldn't be able to keep their pension after being convicted of fraud. If it were allowed, every bad impulse would be acted upon by our legislature."

Nangle's attorney did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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EXCLUSIVE: JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force Uncovers $6 Billion In Suspected Fraudulent Government Contracts

'A disgrace'

How Spanberger managed to hit record-low approval rating in 80 days



House Democrats' loss of 14 seats to Republicans in the 2020 election was apparently an eye-opening experience for then-Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D), who blamed the ease and effectiveness with which critics branded her party as a bunch of radical leftists.

"We need to not ever use the word 'socialist' or 'socialism' ever again," Spanberger said on a post-action House Democratic Caucus phone call. "Because while people think it doesn't matter, it does matter, and we lost good members because of that."

Years after acknowledging the importance of concealing radical impulses from voters, the former undercover CIA officer who participated in the anti-Trump "resistance" after the 2016 election ran for governor of Virginia, campaigning in 2025 as an even-keeled and unifying pragmatist. The liberal media then forwarded that narrative.

'She's just a bot for the Democratic Party.'

It is now painfully obvious, however, that the supposed moderate who defeated former Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears (R) in November in a landslide is — as the GOP of Virginia and others had warned — not as advertised.

A damning new Washington Post-Schar School poll revealed on Monday that Virginians, realizing only too late how Spanberger really operates, have largely soured on the Democratic governor. In fact, her approval rating is so low, it set a record in Post polling.

When asked how Spanberger is handling her job as governor, 47% of respondents signaled approval, 36% signaled disapproval, and 7% expressed no opinion. The Post noted that approval rating is 13 percentage points lower than the average for Spanberger's predecessors going back to the 1990s.

Political analyst Larry Sabato told WJLA-TV, "A drop of that margin is stunning, and it should be greatly disturbing to the governor and the governor's staff if it's repeated in other surveys."

There is no shortage of clues in the poll's cross tabs as to why the people of the Old Dominion are less than enthused about their new governor.

When asked about the supposed moderate's views, a plurality of respondents — 45% — said they were "too liberal." Broken down by party affiliation, 91% of Republicans, 44% of independents, and 6% of Democrats said so. Nearly 10% of Virginians who voted for Spanberger were among those who rated her as "too liberal."

For starters, Spanberger dropped the moderate mask in her approach to immigration.

Weeks after rescinding former Gov. Glenn Youngkin's order requiring state law enforcement agencies to cooperate more fully with federal immigration authorities, Spanberger directed state police and other state agencies to terminate any such agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Department of Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis grouped Spanberger with those "sanctuary politicians" who have "tried to slow ICE down and chosen to release criminals from their jails into our communities to perpetrate more crimes and create more victims."

Virginians are already dealing with the fallout of Spanberger's virtue-signaling.

The DHS noted on Monday that "so far in 2026, illegal aliens have allegedly committed 75% of all murders" in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The supposed moderate also committed all state agencies to rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade program covering power sector emissions that Youngkin — who completed his term with a 50% approval rating — removed Virginia from and dubbed a hidden tax on ratepayers.

While previously a critic of partisan gerrymandering schemes, Spanberger has come out in support of a proposed constitutional amendment that would all but ensure that 10 out of the state's 11 congressional seats go to Democrats, thereby disenfranchising Republican voters in Virginia.

RELATED: Parents enraged over adult illegal alien allegedly molesting Virginia high school girls

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Although consistent on the issue of abortion — she routinely voted in Congress to deprive the unborn of protections and to advance abortion ideology — her continued activism as governor may read as "too liberal" for some residents.

In February, for instance, she signed a partisan constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters later this year, would codify the "right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one's own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care."

In addition to taking an extreme approach to so-called reproductive rights, Spanberger is expected to help her fellow Virginia Democrats in waging war on the Second Amendment. She did, after all, vow not to veto gun-grab laws as Youngkin had and express support for a ban on sales of so-called assault-style weapons.

Among the various gun-control bills awaiting her signature are bills that would:

  • Ban gun possession within 100 feet of locations used for election-related activities;
  • Require a "handgun shooting" course as opposed to an NRA-affiliated safety course;
  • Create a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone who imports, sells, manufactures, purchases, or transfers a so-called assault firearm or magazines that hold over 15 rounds;
  • Prohibit the carrying of loaded "assault firearms" in public spaces;
  • Bar anyone convicted of a misdemeanor "hate crime" assault from possessing or carrying any firearm; and
  • Prohibit Americans younger than 21 from buying a handgun or "assault firearm."

Spanberger faces an April 13 deadline to ratify these and other gun control bills.

Gregory Roddy, a self-identified independent voter from Fairfax County, told the Post that while always skeptical of Spanberger's presentation as a bipartisan candidate, it was clear once she was elected that "she's just a bot for the Democratic Party."

Mason Necci, another independent voter, this time from rural Culpeper County, suggested that Spanberger is attempting "to make herself into a Democratic icon."

"Virginia is already regretting electing a governor who stands for illegal immigrants over her constituents," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) wrote. "Spanberger's alarming disapproval rating is telling. And she's been in office a mere three months."

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The Medicaid fraud problem is not going away



John Locke’s "Second Treatise of Government," which inspired many of our nation’s founding principles, makes the simple assertion that the basic role of government is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the consenting governed. Though our federal government has long since strayed from this purpose, opportunities to defend it are always a worthy endeavor.

That is why President Trump’s appointment of Vice President JD Vance to lead a new task force dedicated to rooting out fraud in the United States is a welcome undertaking.

There’s no incentive for states to police fraud: They can’t go over budget, and the feds still pick up the tab for illegitimate claims.

For too long, numerous states have abused federal dollars, failing to ensure that many recipients are even real or qualified for federal funds and leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab. Contrary to the media narrative that the administration is simply on a blue-state witch hunt, the billions of dollars stolen in Minnesota (yet to be returned) tell a different story.

For once, the executive branch is demonstrating proper oversight in the service of the American taxpayer, and it is long overdue.

Federal prosecutors estimate that, across 14 Minnesota Medicaid-funded programs, fraud totals more than $9 billion. That number is half of all federal matching funds allocated to the state since 2018.

It’s often said that taxation is theft. In Minnesota, it appears to be policy.

Correctly, Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Vice President JD Vance, have turned off the credit card until Minnesota officials can clean up their act.

Following a January CMS effort to get the state into compliance, the agency is also deferring payment for Q4 of 2025, having identified $259.5 million in fraudulent and illegal claims.

Like clockwork, officials, including Gov. Walz, began to plead on behalf of victims of a potential Medicaid fallout, portraying themselves as the defenders of the very Minnesotans victimized by the fraud they enabled.

In a House Oversight Committee hearing just a few weeks ago, Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison faced questions with a surprising lack of urgency. When asked if he felt the state’s efforts to return funds were successful, Walz denied culpability: “I can’t speak to that ... I don’t have any part in that.”

Despite media outlets defending the state’s “good-faith effort” to make amends, the estimated $80 million returned still falls short of even 1% of the money stolen from taxpayers.

Similarly, Walz refused to elaborate on whether government officials who enabled fraud had been fired. During the Oversight Committee’s investigation, it was revealed that dozens of whistleblowers who reported fraud inside the Minnesota Department of Human Services were retaliated against. Minnesota DHS hired outside entities to investigate staff who fell out of line.

The reason? Dozens of whistleblowers reported that they were told not to say anything about the fraud for fear of being called “racist” or “Islamophobic.”

Not only did Walz and Ellison know about massive welfare fraud in the state, but they went to great lengths to keep it that way, afraid that cracking down on the disproportionate amount of Medicaid fraud in the Somali community would harm them politically.

RELATED: Tax-exempt hospitals are not putting their patients first

David M. Levitt/Bloomberg/Getty Images

This level of fraud is historic. But rather than making a good-faith effort to identify fraud and recover taxpayer funds, Minnesota may become the first state to pursue the unprecedented step of suing CMS instead of using the agency’s internal appeals process. While state officials claim they are at a loss over how to satisfy CMS requirements, doubling down on fraud is doubtlessly not the solution CMS is looking for.

Vance, now tasked with developing a nationwide anti-fraud strategy, should build on CMS’ approach in Minnesota, one that directly targets the root of the problem.

Minnesota, like many states, receives a Federal Medical Assistance Percentage of 90% for adults covered under the ACA expansion. In practice, that means for every dollar the state spends, the federal government contributes nine. States that spend more get more. There’s no incentive for states to police fraud: They can’t go over budget, and the feds still pick up the tab for illegitimate claims, ultimately passing the balance on to taxpayers.

In context, CMS’ Medicaid funding pause in Minnesota functions as a blunt but effective check: no oversight, no money. Should Minnesota decide to bolster program integrity and ensure that Medicaid assistance only goes to Americans who are truly in need, it can confidently spend its cash again with the assurance of federal backing.

In the meantime, every other state would be wise to take note and get its house in order before Vance drops the hammer.

The Fight Against Blue State Fraud Is Probably Going Better Than It Seems

If you’ve been following the news this week, it might look like we’re losing the fight against the kind of fraud you remember from Nick Shirley’s visit to that government-funded Quality Learing Center. In Minnesota, two remarkable sentences delivered by the same federal judge in the “Feeding the Future” scandal make stealing from the government […]

Your Medicaid Taxes Paid For An Autism Therapy Exec’s $2.5M Beach Home

In too many cases, autism therapy is at best a joke designed to bilk money out of Medicaid and at worst a danger to the patients themselves.

Whistleblowers could receive big reward for exposing fraudsters stealing American tax dollars



Whistleblowers who report financial fraud could receive a significant payout from the Trump administration.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new program on Monday to pay eligible whistleblowers for providing actionable tips related to fraud, money laundering, sanctions violations, and other national security laws.

'The scale of this is unbelievable.'

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network submitted a proposed rule to implement the new program.

Fraud whistleblowers could receive 10% to 30% of the fines imposed on the criminals they report.

This latest announcement is part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on fraud, an issue that has remained in the national spotlight following journalist Nick Shirley's investigative reporting in Minnesota and California.

"As promised, Treasury will reward whistleblowers who provide timely, actionable information on fraud, sanctions violations, and other significant illicit finance activity," Bessent stated. "President Trump has been clear that Americans have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being diverted to fund acts of global terror or to fund luxury cars for fraudsters. At Treasury, we follow the money, and we strongly encourage individuals to come forward with credible tips to help safeguard our financial system."

RELATED: Vance’s fraud task force drops hammer: 70 California hospice and home health providers suspended

Scott Bessent. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Treasury Department has already received over 700 leads, according to Bessent.

During an interview with Fox News, Bessent explained that "a lot" of the financial fraud could be attributed to COVID relief.

"Many of the agencies under the Biden administration gutted their fraud departments, their fraud detection, or took down the fraud detection to get the money out quickly for COVID relief. But they never brought back the guardians of our money. So we have to have integrity in these programs," Bessent told the news outlet.

Bessent estimated that the federal government may be able to recoup hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

"The scale of this is unbelievable," Bessent said.

RELATED: ANOTHER Democrat in hot water over COVID-linked fraud allegations

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance has been tapped to lead the administration's new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it had suspended 70 hospice and home health providers as part of its work with the task force to identify high-risk providers.

"Vice President Vance looks forward to carrying out the president's war on fraud," a spokesperson for Vance previously told Blaze News. "The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country, and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will ensure that essential taxpayer-funded services are used to support the hardworking Americans who rely on them, instead of being used by fraudsters and criminals."

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The SAVE America Act won’t be enough to save the GOP from a midterm bloodbath



Turn on Fox News, scroll social media, or listen to talk radio, and one message comes through loud and clear: Many Republicans think the SAVE America Act is the key to saving the GOP in the November midterms.

It is not.

The SAVE America Act is not a magic wand. It will not erase 14 months of drift, dysfunction, and broken promises.

Yes, requiring proof of citizenship to register and identification to vote is necessary. Yes, most Americans, regardless of party, support the idea. But Republicans are kidding themselves if they think that alone will persuade voters to reward them in November.

The rot runs much deeper, and no “one simple trick” will fix it.

Trump surged to victory in 2024 on promises to change the country’s direction in dramatic ways. Fourteen months later, too many of those promises remain unfulfilled. Some died at the hands of weak and ineffective congressional leadership. Others were thwarted by feckless Cabinet officials, such as the new czarina of the Shield of the Americas, Kristi Noem. Others fell victim to Trump’s own choices.

The core promises were clear: mass deportations, a stronger economy, lower inflation, and no new long-term foreign entanglements. Those themes helped Trump assemble a broad coalition, including a majority of young men, and deliver the biggest Republican Electoral College victory since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Now, with just over seven months until the midterms, nearly all of those promises remain unmet or badly compromised. Facts aren’t partisan — they are just facts.

Start with immigration. For all the left’s hysteria over ICE raids, Trump has deported fewer people than Barack Obama did in the first year of his second term. That came after four years of unprecedented illegal immigration under Biden. The promise of mass deportation remains unfulfilled.

Congress hasn’t helped. Ineffective Republican leadership has let the Department of Homeland Security go without funding for over a month, slowing deportation efforts while creating chaos at airports as TSA employees go unpaid. The public sees dysfunction, not competence.

RELATED: Mullin inherits a mess at DHS. Here’s how he can still save Trump’s legacy.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Then comes the economy.

The cost of living has not gone down. Signs point the other way. Inflation could surge past 4% as energy prices rise because of the war with Iran. Food prices remain high and may climb higher as petroleum-based fertilizer gets more expensive just before planting season. Homes remain unaffordable to most Americans. The job market sits on the edge of an AI-fueled bust. The promised relief in the form of larger tax refund checks has not materialized.

The labor market struggles as rampant H-1B visa abuse keeps importing cheaper foreign labor into high-paying STEM jobs that Americans want and are trained to do. Trump and Republican leaders still talk about H-1B as though it were a strategic advantage rather than a direct threat to their own voters.

Guess what? Voters have noticed.

Recent polling shows Democrat James Talarico leading both Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. Former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper holds a commanding lead in the race to replace Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina. Even in Maine, the Democrat challenger accused of sporting a Nazi tattoo leads Sen. Susan Collins.

RELATED: Texas Democrats just gave Republicans a gift-wrapped hypocrisy story

Bob Daemmrich/Texas Tribune/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The bad numbers do not stop there. A glance at RealClearPolitics tells the terrifying tale.

Special elections are just as ugly. In those races, including the district that encompasses Mar-a-Lago, Democrats have run strongly among independent voters, the very bloc that helped solidify Trump’s 2024 coalition.

That is the problem Republicans refuse to face. The SAVE America Act is a common-sense bill, and Congress should pass it. Elections should be protected from ineligible voters. But the bill is not a magic wand. It will not erase 14 months of drift, dysfunction, and broken promises. It will not lower prices, deport illegal aliens, fix the job market, or persuade disillusioned independents to come back home.

Republicans do not face a midterm problem because they have failed to pass one bill. They face a midterm problem because they have failed to deliver on the reasons voters put them back in power.

Here’s Vance’s Plan To Attack $250 Billion In Annual Fraud Losses

The task force has a wide range of activity that it considers fraud.