Dressed in black, a mysterious woman arrived at a young person’s suburban home on a Sunday evening, clutching a party bag filled with wads of cash, nearly $120,000 in all.
It was a gift for the 23-year-old juror in the federal Feeding Our Future trial, the woman told the juror’s stepfather, who opened the door just before 9 p.m. If the juror voted to acquit all seven defendants in the fraud case, there “would be more of this gift tomorrow,” the woman said, handing over a white floral gift bag filled with $100 bills, $50 and $20, according to an FBI search warrant filed Monday.
The juror immediately reported the incident to Spring Lake Park police and turned over the bag full of money to the FBI, which is investigating the incident. The juror was dismissed before the jury assembled in the Minneapolis courtroom Monday morning.
“This is outrageous behavior,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson told U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel. “That’s what happens in mafia movies.”
The shocking development in the high-profile trial, now entering its seventh week, came just before closing arguments ended and jury deliberations began late Monday afternoon. The trial is the first in a broader case that prosecutors have called one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes, with 70 people accused of stealing more than $250 million in federal money intended for feed children in need.
The woman used the juror’s first name, according to the search warrant, although that name was not publicly disclosed; she was referred to the court only as Juror #52. Before jury selection, lawyers and defendants were briefly shown the list of names and addresses of people expected to serve on the jury, Brazil said.
“This cannot be allowed,” Thompson said of juror bribery, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, adding that the incident could impact the upcoming trials of more than three dozen people. “This undermines the integrity of our system.”
In a rare move following the incident, Brasel sequestered the jury, which now includes 12 jurors and five alternates. One by one, Brasel questioned the remaining 17 jurors to ensure they had had no contact with anyone about the case in the past six weeks. They all confirmed no.
Brasel also ordered the confiscation of the defendants’ phones by an FBI agent to investigate the leak of jurors’ names, increased courtroom security, and arrested all seven defendants. Defense attorneys called the bribery attempt “un-American,” “very disturbing,” “horrific” and “unprecedented” but argued against detaining the defendants, none of whom have been incarcerated since the beginning of 2023. GPS ankle monitoring device.
Brasel said they will be detained until investigators can determine whether any of them leaked the list. The defendants and their family members watching in the gallery cried and hugged each other as U.S. Marshals escorted the defendants out.
Brasel said jurors are worried about the safety of their families and the juror whose home was approached is terrified. “The juror remains at risk of retaliation,” she said.
The bribe attempt is the latest unexpected twist in this long trial. Last week, six of the seven defense attorneys ended their arguments without calling any witnesses, despite earlier saying they would call their own experts and eyewitnesses. Then a defendant decided to take the stand, testifying about how he distributed food to thousands of Bloomington families but played no role in the financial paperwork.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys addressed the jury for 11 hours in closing arguments Friday and Monday.
Said Shafii Farah, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff and Hayat Mohamed Nur were indicted in 2022 on wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. They have ties to a Shakopee restaurant, Empire Cuisine & Market.
The seven defendants are among 70 people charged in this broader case involving U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that reimburse schools, daycares and nonprofit organizations for feeding low-income children after school and during the summer.
The six men and one woman received more than $40 million for 18 million meals distributed at 50 meal sites across Minnesota, from Rochester to St. Cloud – in 2020 and 2021. Prosecutors say about 10% of that money was spent on food and that the defendants conducted a “brazen” fraudulent scheme that created numerous shell companies to launder money, submitted lists of made-up children’s names and inflated meal claims.
Prosecutors also say some of the defendants paid bribes to others in the scheme, disguised as consulting fees, leading to corruption charges. They said the defendants spent the money on themselves, including a million-dollar property on Prior Lake, luxury cars and gold jewelry.
They called more than 30 witnesses and presented 1,300 exhibits in the Minneapolis courtroom.
Defense attorneys sought to cast doubt on the FBI investigation because agents failed to verify that the meals were served by visiting warehouses or food distribution sites overseen by St. Louis. Paul non-profit partners in nutrition and st. Anthony non-profit Feeding Our Future.
In closing arguments, they said prosecutors had insufficient evidence, selective data and unreliable witnesses who remembered details from years ago. They sought to discredit a former Feeding Our Future employee who testified about a “booming” fraudulent kickback scheme.
Andrew Garvis, who represents Aftin, said in his hour-long closing argument that FBI agents never searched Aftin’s apartment or email and are not accusing him of extravagant spending, like the others accused. Garvis said the FBI’s “non-investigation” was based on confirmation bias that the amount of food distributed was improbable. “The government made a giant assumption,” he added.
Defense attorneys said their clients were providing real food to real children. The alleged bribes, they said, were appropriate payments – part of the common East African culture of informal dealings with friends and family.
Shariff’s attorney, Andrew Mohring, in a nearly two-hour closing argument, urged jurors to consider each defendant’s charges separately.
Shariff, 33, a former Microsoft software engineer and married father of two, was the only defendant to be tested. Mohring said Shariff had limited responsibility for managing the food sites and did not prepare any financial documents he transmitted.
“He was the one in charge of logistics, not the one in charge of money,” he said.
Hayat Nur, Abdimajid Nur’s sister, had a small office role passing along lists of children created by someone else and is being dogged by allegations of association, her lawyer Nicole Kettwick said. Prosecutors discussed her for about 10 minutes over four weeks and provided no evidence that she knowingly did anything wrong or that she had become rich, Kettwick said.
“You’re missing vital information,” she said. “You can’t lump them all together like the government has suggested.”
In his rebuttal, Thompson said the defendants’ arguments that they played minor roles were consistent with a conspiracy. If the defendants served food but not all 18 million meals, it’s still fraud, he said.
“The money was flowing,” he said. “This was a crushing fraudulent scheme.”