A Minnesota jury came to a strong conclusion in a high-profile case that revealed a dishonest plan to steal millions of dollars in Covid relief funds.
Seven Somali defendants were on trial on charges that they took advantage of a government program meant to give kids and low-income families free, healthy meals during the pandemic. The defendants worked for a Minnesota charity group called Feeding Our Future. A web of lies that ran from April 2020 to January 2022 was broken by the alleged plan. The defendants were accused of hiring people to start Federal Child Nutrition Program sites during this time. But they didn’t feed the kids with the money they got from the program; instead, they used it for themselves.
For their benefit, the prosecutors call the operation “a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” pointing out that the defendants took advantage of a program meant to help poor children during the pandemic. The panel that was locked up has decided that five of the defendants are guilty of most of the crimes they were charged with, such as conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. People like Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, and Hayat Nur have been found guilty. Said Shafii Farah and Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, two other suspects, were found not guilty of any crime.
A juror told the judge about a claimed attempt to bribe them during the trial. The juror said that a stranger brought her a bag with $120,000 in cash and told her that they would give her more if she voted to free the offenders. The juror quickly told the court and the cops, which got her fired. The FBI is still looking into the bribes case. The US attorney, Andrew Luger, says that the defendants got more than $40 million in government funds and that they bought a lot of homes, properties, and expensive cars with that money. Feeding Our Future, the sponsor that was linked to the fraud has been closely looked at, and 18 people who worked for the group have already pleaded guilty.
