Alleged Ohio fraudsters filed false health claims, purchased luxury cars
A composite posted to the Department of Justice’s X account, June 4, 2026. (Department of Justice)
(WASHINGTON) — Senior Justice Department leaders on Thursday announced a number of cases against those who they say perpetrated fraud in Ohio.
Four people, including two state of Ohio employees, were charged with a $30 million fraud scheme targeting the state’s behavioral health department.
Two of the defendants owned businesses which claimed to provide behavioral health services for young adults that attend summer camps, church groups and recreational programs, according to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department alleges the two businesses submitted fraudulent claims for services that were never rendered. After the claims were not submitted because one of the behavioral health organizations’ accreditation was invalid, the two allegedly conspired with another individual to submit claims.
The funds were used to fund a lavish lifestyle, according to DOJ, including purchasing 14 vehicles worth $800,000.
“The days of the brazen theft that we’ve seen of taxpayer dollars, abusing the generosity of the American taxpayer is over,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference in Columbus, Ohio. “Our message to fraudsters is simple: With our state and local partners, the Department of Justice will be working day and night to identify you, arrest you and imprison you.”
Blanche and other federal leaders, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, were in Ohio to not only announce charges against alleged fraudsters, but to also announce a Top 10 fraudsters list and tout the cooperation between Ohio authorities and the federal government on fraud issues.
“Our best form of information is the American public,” Patel said. “Take a look at this Top 10 most wanted. Let us know any information. There is no bad piece of information. The only bad piece of information is the one you don’t give us.”
Earlier this week, the Justice Department charged five individuals with scamming older Americans in romance fraud schemes totaling $15 million. The five — mostly from Ghana — allegedly used AI to create false stories and indicate to people they were interested in them romantically to get them to send them money.
“Once they establish trust, they use false pretenses and stories about vast inheritances of money, gold, or diamonds, and then convince these elderly Americans to help finance bogus legal proceedings in the nation of Ghana,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio David M. Toepfer said at the press conference.
The scheme allegedly went on for almost two years and impacted more than 100 people.
“They then use this stolen money to buy a mansion in Ghana. Diamond-encrusted jewelry, a Lamborghini and other high-end luxury vehicles. All of those assets have now been seized and are going through the forfeiture proceedings so that they will not profit from their fraudulent efforts,” Toepfer said.
FBI personnel walk towards the house connected to Cole Tomas Allen, the shooting suspect at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in Torrance, CA on Saturday night, April 25, 2026. (Robbin Goddard / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Cole Allen, the suspect in the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night, made a brief first court appearance on Monday to face charges, including attempted assassination of the president.
Allen, 31, walked in wearing a blue jumpsuit and took his seat at the defense table. The Torrance, California, native faces three felony counts of attempted assassination of the President of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition over state lines with the intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. This is the third assassination attempt President Donald Trump has faced.
The first count of attempting to assassinate the president carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, if convicted.
Allen did not enter a plea.
As Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh asked Allen the routine series of questions for defendants charged in federal court, he nodded and readily answered with, “Yes, your honor.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine said the government was seeking Allen’s continued detention pending trial.
Ballantine said Allen attempted to assassinate Trump using a 12-gauge pump action shotgun and said he was also carrying a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, three knives “and other dangerous paraphernalia.”
Public defender Tezira Abe indicated the defense may seek to contest detention, noting he has no prior arrest record and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Sharbaugh scheduled a detention hearing for Thursday and ordered Allen to be temporarily detained until then. Allen’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 11.
Allen appears to have shared social media posts that were critical of Trump and his administration — including calling for Trump’s removal — on the social media platform Bluesky.
In addition to sharing posts denouncing Trump’s policies — including the war with Iran, increased ICE enforcement actions, and the U.S. diminished support for Ukraine — Allen also appeared to share posts criticizing a reporter in connection with the correspondents’ dinner. His account shared posts that described an effort to highlight press freedoms related to the event as “pathetic” and akin to a “white flag … [to] wave in defeat.”
A Bluesky spokesperson said, “Violence has no place in our public discourse, and we are committed to providing people with the platform and tools to engage in healthy conversation.”
“Our Trust & Safety team is actively reviewing and taking action against content that violates Bluesky’s Community Guidelines, including posts that amplify misinformation, or glorify violence or harm,” Bluesky said.
Allen — a trained mechanical engineer working as a tutor — traveled across the country to perpetrate “as much damage as he could,” sources and officials said.
Local authorities said the suspect was tackled by law enforcement after gunfire inside the Washington Hilton, where thousands of journalists as well as Trump and members of his Cabinet were gathered for the annual event.
Allen was detained near the main magnetometer area for the event, with surveillance video showing the suspect running past security officials. Interim D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Jeffrey Carroll told reporters that the suspect was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. Carroll said the preliminary information is that he was a “lone actor.”
Law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation said that Allen was declining to answer questions but allegedly made some non-specific reference to targeting administration officials.
A Secret Service member was shot during the incident but the bullet hit the agent’s protective vest, Trump said after the incident. The president said he spoke with the agent and he was in good spirits.
Shortly before the White House press briefing, Trump posted a video showing agents subduing the suspect, who he said “charged a security checkpoint armed with many weapons.”
Law enforcement officials said that Allen is believed to have booked a room in the Washington Hilton, where the dinner took place, in early April.
Investigators believe the suspect arrived in Washington by train, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Sunday during an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” with anchor George Stephanopoulos.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro told reporters Saturday night that Allen was being charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.
“It is clear, based upon what we know so far, that this individual was intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could,” Pirro said.
ABC News’ Lauren Minore, Luke Barr, Nicholas Kerr, Ivan Pereira, Aaron Katersky, Josh Margolin, John Santucci, Michelle Stoddart, Lucien Bruggeman, Oren Oppenheim, Katherine Faulders and Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
U.S. Forest Service Climbing Rangers responded to a rescue involving a 31-year-old female climber who suffered a serious fall while ascending the Left of Heart variation of the Avalanche Gulch route on Mount Shasta. (U.S. Forest Service – Shasta-Trinity National Forest)
(CALIFORNIA) — U.S. Forest Service Rangers rescued a woman over the weekend who was climbing Mt. Shasta in California and fell over 1,500 feet in the snow.
The unidentified 31-year-old woman was part of a group of three novice climbers who were ascending the Left of Heart variation of the Avalanche Gulch route on Mount Shasta on Sunday, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Around noon that day, the rangers got a call about the woman falling approximately 1,500 vertical feet before coming to rest on the mountain, according to the Forest Service.
Weather conditions prevented a helicopter rescue so three rangers ascended on foot, the Forest Service said.
They were assisted by one member of the climbing party who had descended to help carry rescue equipment, according to the Forest Service. Another climber who happened to be in the area also stopped to assist the injured climber and remained with the group throughout the rescue, the Forest Service said.
The woman who fell was found safe and in good spirits with a suspected fractured right ankle and other injuries, according to the Forest Service.
The civilian and Forest Service rescuers secured the woman in a SKED rescue litter and lowered her to Lake Helen before a California Highway Patrol helicopter transported her to a hospital, the Forest Service said.
“This incident serves as an important reminder that Mount Shasta is a high-altitude mountaineering environment, not a hike. Even experienced climbers can encounter rapidly changing weather, steep snow and ice, rockfall, and hazardous fall conditions,” the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement.
Lesley Groff (C), a former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, arrives to testify at a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill on June 09, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Lesley Groff, the former executive secretary of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, attempted to deflect any culpability in Epstein’s crimes, telling lawmakers that she routinely scheduled massages for her boss but never booked appointments for anyone she knew to be underage, according to a House Oversight Committee transcript released Tuesday.
“I never met these women, so I didn’t know if they were young or how old they were,” Groff said during her appearance earlier this month. “I thought that it was just something that he did, like going to the gym.”
Groff, who worked for Epstein in New York for more than 18 years, was previously described by her boss as an “extension of my brain.” She appeared as part of the committee’s ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and his alleged accomplices.
Once identified by federal prosecutors as a potential co-conspirator in Epstein’s crimes, Groff said she hoped her interview would “dispel the false notions” that she “knowingly enabled or conspired with him to commit his evil acts.”
Over the course of an eight-hour interview, Groff faced at times skeptical inquiries from committee members and staff, who questioned how she could have been unaware of Epstein’s predilection for sexualized massages, the transcript shows.
“You want us to believe that after 18 years working in the employ of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein that not on one occasion did you believe that any of your contacts in setting up these appointments with Jeffrey Epstein were either a minor or an underage person, correct?” asked Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.
“Ms. Groff, do you think that a 14-year-old sounds the same as a person in their 20s or 30s or 40s?” asked an attorney for the committee.
“It’s possible. I don’t know. I was not evaluating voices,” Groff replied. “Nobody ever sounded like they were underage.”
Groff, now 59, appeared voluntarily for the interview, which was not under oath and not recorded. It marks the first time she has faced questions since speaking to the FBI in New York in 2021, two years after Epstein’s death. Later that year, prosecutors informed her that she would not be charged, according to her attorneys.
Groff told the committee that she was hired by Epstein in 2001 and was immediately “astonished by the truly impressive people in his circle,” including past presidents, actors, musicians and scientists.
“I actually felt lucky to have found such an amazing job. I was thrust into the lifestyles of the rich and famous,” she said in her prepared opening remarks.
She said Epstein’s directive for daily massages was a “very small part” of her duties in coordinating Epstein’s schedule. From the moment she was hired, Epstein and his then-partner Ghislaine Maxwell “established guardrails” and made it clear that she was never to associate with their friends.
“Their business was none of my business,” she said she was told.
When Epstein came under law enforcement scrutiny in Florida in the mid-2000s — first by the Palm Beach police and later by the FBI — Groff said he told her he had been set up for blackmail by a girl who lied about her age.
“It was a shakedown, he claimed, for money,” Groff said. “At the time, I actually felt sorry for him. I thought, ‘Wow, this must be really difficult to be a wealthy person and not know who you can trust because everybody wants your money.'”
Groff said she first learned of the criminal investigation when the FBI showed up at her home in Connecticut in 2007.
“I let them in my house and sat with them on my sofa, and they started asking me some questions. That’s how I found out,” she said. “I think my head was probably spinning. I had no idea.”
Groff told the committee she excused herself to check on her son and then called Epstein’s in-house lawyer about the FBI visit. She said she was advised not to talk to the agents without a lawyer.
“And so I went downstairs and said, ‘I don’t think I should be speaking to you without an attorney present.’ And they didn’t really like that, and then they left,” she said.
Groff said that after Epstein went to jail in 2008, she considered resigning. She stayed, she said, because she “actually believed he had been set up” and because she saw that the “same VIP’s continued to surround” him after his conviction.
“I looked around the office and I felt people smarter than me were still there and stayed there. All his contacts and business people, no one left,” she said, according to the transcript.
After Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, federal prosecutors in New York included Groff in a list of potential co-conspirators and sent her a subpoena. Her attorney informed the government, just four days after Epstein’s arrest, that Groff “would invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination” if called to appear before a grand jury, according to DOJ records released in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Prosecutors informed Groff’s lawyer that “numerous victims [of Epstein] had indicated that she was responsible for scheduling massages during which they were sexually abused,” and that she should consider cooperating with the investigation, according to the DOJ records.
Groff eventually interviewed with the investigators two years later, telling prosecutors that “making massage appointments was just another appointment she had to make” for Epstein.
The DOJ files also include an account from a witness — who was a minor at the time of her alleged abuse by Epstein — who told the FBI that she felt Groff “knew that the massage appointments were sexual” and “felt it was pretty obvious Lesley knew what was going on.” The witness also alleged that she explicitly told Groff she was not 18 years old and needed money for an abortion, according to the FBI report.
Asked by a committee attorney about those allegations, Groff said she felt “terrible for this survivor” but contended the witness’s recollections were inaccurate.
“I’m not saying that what she’s thinking — that she told someone — but she did not tell me,” Groff said. “I think she is mistaken. I know she is mistaken.”
Groff said that after Epstein was released from jail in 2010, she was never again asked to book a massage appointment for him. She acknowledged she booked travel — at Epstein’s direction — for women who would later allege to have been sexually exploited. But she contended she had no reason to think the women were being abused.
“I believed them to be traveling assistants, and none of them ever looked unhappy or under duress,” she said. “In hindsight, it’s terrible, I can’t imagine what they were going through.”
She said she was not alarmed by now-public email messages from Epstein’s associates sharing photographs and information about foreign women — because of Epstein’s connections in the modeling and fashion industries. She conceded that some of the emails released by the Justice Department appear alarming in retrospect, but insisted she had no reason to be concerned at the time.
“I did not know that this was occurring. I never saw anything inappropriate,” she said. “Everything to me — that I was doing, I feel like now, looking through a dirty lens, things look dirty. But at this time, I was unaware of anything that was going on.”
Groff said that since Epstein’s arrest in 2019, she has struggled to sleep and eat, been the target of harassment and death threats, and been “shunned” by many of her friends and acquaintances.
She was one of four women listed as potential co-conspirators in Epstein’s controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2007, which she said, “remains her scarlet letter.”
