The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday accused Charlotte housing advocate Cedric Dean of running a massive Medicaid fraud scam, saying he improperly billed the federal government millions of dollars over a 10-month period in 2024 and 2025.
Dean, who was formerly incarcerated, had been praised by numerous Charlotte leaders since his release from federal prison on drug charges last decade.
WFAE reporter Steve Harrison joins Morning Edition host Marshall Terry to talk abut the case.
TERRY: Steve, before we talk about the case, tell me about Cedric Dean.
HARRISON: Dean is in his 50s. He grew up on the west side of Charlotte. He was sentenced to five years in prison for armed robbery when he was 16. Here he is in a video talking about being in solitary confinement as a teenager.
DEAN: I developed an animalistic type mentality. To where I was addressing each, what’s up dog. It was during this period where I was taught to be a thug, where I was taught to terrorize the streets when I got out of prison.
HARRISON: Less than a year later, in 1997, he was sentenced to life for selling crack cocaine. But sentencing laws around crack were later softened, and he was released after 20 years.
TERRY: So Dean is released in 2017, and then he pledges to turn his life around and help others, is that right?
HARRISON: Yes. He established a nonprofit called SAVE, for Safeguard, Atone, Validate and Education, and he worked closely with then newly elected Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden, who had known Dean when he was a teenager. He has said McFadden came to visit him the night of his release.
He was the keynote speaker for Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles’ mentoring alliance program in 2018, and when he petitioned for early release from his parole, former City Council member Julie Eiselt and Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather were among those who vouched for him.
TERRY: And Dean even went to Congress?
HARRISON: He did. He was a guest of Charlotte Rep. Alma Adams at the 2019 State of the Union speech. He’s not a household name, but he’s a mover, a connector, someone in Charlotte who is known in political circles, who can get elected officials to show up and support him.
TERRY: So Dean had been doing a lot of work in the community for years. And other elected officials, like Mecklenburg Commission Chair Mark Jerrell, are big supporters. But I think a lot of people first heard about him in May of this year, when he attended a news conference for Charlotte City Council member Tiawana Brown, who had just been indicted.
HARRISON: Yes. Brown and Dean are close friends. And after she was indicted on COVID-era relief fraud, he sat beside her at her news conference and vigorously defended her.
And Dean had not left his past behind him, at least in terms of how he presented himself. On his LinkedIn, for instance, he wrote that he is a "Thugological expert” and that he devotes himself to helping thugs and goons.
TERRY: So that news conference was in May of this year. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said last week in its civil filing that Dean had recently embarked on a spree of fraudulent billing for Medicaid. What do they say happened?
HARRISON: The filing said nonprofit Cedric Dean Homes billed Medicaid for $14.5 million over a 10 month period in 2024 and 2025, and was paid nearly $9 million. The government said the conspirators “billed exorbitant amounts for services that the conspirators could not, within the bounds of space and time, provide.”
The government said Dean and his conspirators — who were not named — obtained “millions of dollars in fraud proceeds, which they funneled through numerous accounts.” They used that money to buy houses and other property, according to the government.
And the government last week moved to seize those assets, including four houses, RVs, trucks and bank accounts.
TERRY: So how did the fraud allegedly work?
HARRISON: So in addition to helping people who have been incarcerated, Dean is a housing advocate, running homeless shelters.
And the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Dean and his partners would get Medicaid beneficiary numbers from people at homeless shelters, homeless encampments and halfway houses. He would then give them food or a place to stay.
He would then bill the federal government for things like mental health services and substance-abuse counseling, which he said he was providing.
But the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, no. For example, attorneys wrote that Cedric Dean Homes submitted 54 claims for supportive living services to Medicaid even after one beneficiary died. The total billed: $11,124.
TERRY: And Steve, there have been no criminal charges filed. Is that possibly coming?
HARRISON: It would be hard to imagine the government won’t bring charges in an alleged almost $15 million fraud. The federal government’s forfeiture laws allows it to seize property suspected of being obtained from criminal activity, and the civil filing says that Dean’s property was obtained as the result of violating criminal laws. But to be clear, at least as of now, no criminal charges against Dean have been filed.
