Jury convicts five of seven defendants in the Feeding Our Future trial

A jury in Minneapolis on Friday convicted five of seven defendants in the first trial to follow the sprawling federal investigation into the Twin Cities nonprofit Feeding Our Future. After five weeks of routine and sometimes mundane trial proceedings, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel made the rare move of jailing the defendants amid an allegation of jury tampering, and FBI agents on Wednesday searched a defendant’s home.

The defendants were all connected to Empire Cuisine and Market, a small storefront restaurant in Shakopee. They were named in a 43-count indictment returned in September 2022. The charges include wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering. Jurors were asked to return verdicts on 41 of the counts because two only applied to defendant Mahad Ibrahim, who was not tried with the others after his lawyer became unavailable just before the beginning of the trial in late April.

At trial, prosecutors showed the jury page after page of bank statements, canceled checks, invoices, WhatsApp messages, emails, vehicle purchase orders, wire transfer receipts, meal reimbursement requests and meal site attendance sheets to bolster their allegations that the group falsely claimed to have served 18 million meals during the COVID pandemic, for which they collected $47 million in taxpayer money. The government said the group spent their ill-gotten gains on real estate, vehicles, and travel and showed jurors photos of vehicles that the FBI seized, as well as images depicting luxury homes.

The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office contended that Abdiaziz S. Farah, 35, Mohamed J. Ismail, 51, Abdimajid M. Nur, 23, Said S. Farah, 41, Abdiwahab M. Aftin, 33, Mukhtar M. Shariff, 33, and Hayat M. Nur, 27, were part of a much wider conspiracy to siphon $250 million from the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service Program. Both are operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and managed at the state level by the Minnesota Department of Education.

Abdiaziz Farah was convicted on 23 of 24 counts against him. Ismail was convicted on three of four counts. The jury found Abdimajid Nur guilty on 10 of 13 counts, but he was acquitted on three money laundering charges. Shariff was convicted on four of six counts, and Hayat Nur convicted on three of five counts.

Said Farah and Aftin were acquitted on all nine counts and three counts, respectively. They will be freed from custody of the Sherburne County Jail. The other defendants remain detained.

In his closing argument Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said that the defendants took advantage of rule waivers during the pandemic that allowed for-profit restaurants to participate in government programs that had for decades been restricted to child care centers and social service agencies.

Thompson said that the food programs were “not designed to make people wealthy” and operated largely on the honor system to ensure that kids received nutritious meals when school was not in session.

Throughout the trial and in their separate closing arguments on Friday and Monday, defense attorneys questioned investigators’ techniques, and noted that none visited any of the meal sites despite their concerns about fraud.

The defense centered its case around the food that was given to families, particularly at Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington and Oak Grove Middle School nearby. Andrew Birrell, who represents Empire co-owner Abdiaziz Farah, said in his closing argument that investigators did not analyze the government’s evidence of genuine food distribution, and noted that a $10 bag of rice fulfilled the grain requirement for 160 meals, an example that multiplied, accounts for the large number of meals claimed on reimbursement paperwork.

Patrick Cotter, Ismail’s attorney, argued that failing to keep up with a myriad of program rule changes during the pandemic does not make his client guilty of fraud. Cotter also blamed “regulatory confusion and failed communication” between USDA, MDE, and the nonprofit meal site sponsors Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition.

One of the seven defendants testified in his own defense.

Mukhtar Shariff, once the CEO of Afrique Hospitality, a Bloomington multi-use event center, told jurors about working in the IT industry in Seattle, starting multiple businesses there, and moving to Minnesota in 2020 to open Afrique.

Shariff’s attorney Frederick Goetz showed slides from his client’s presentation to investors that outlined a business model that hedged the volatility of the hospitality industry with “large consistent revenue” from child food service program contracts.

Goetz also displayed photos and videos of people lined up at Dar Al Farooq to collect food in 2021 and called nine witnesses to testify on Shariff’s behalf, including a Sysco salesman who verified the authenticity of invoices showing that Afrique bought $1.6 million worth of food from the distributor.

By taking the stand, Shariff waived his right to remain silent and subjected himself to cross examination from the prosecution. Thompson on May 30 confronted Shariff with an invoice for nearly $500,000 that he emailed to Feeding Our Future for food that he claimed was served at Dar Al Farooq and two other sites. Thompson showed additional reimbursement requests for 3,200 meals claimed to have been served each day for a week in September 2021.

“I’m not vouching for the exact numbers. I have no reason to believe they were inaccurate,” Shariff said.

Thompson then confronted Shariff with dozens of five and six figure checks that were paid to Afrique and Shariff’s consulting company throughout 2021. Many were from nonprofits and businesses controlled by other people indicted in this case and included words such as “supplies” and “consulting” on the memo lines.

Shariff claimed not to know what the money was for, including a $95,000 check from co-defendant Mahad Ibrahim.

Shown a series of five and six figure checks paid to Afrique and Shariff’s consulting company in 2021, Shariff claimed not to know what the money was for, including a $95,000 check from Mahad Ibrahim, who was also charged in the case.

Judge Brasel paused closing arguments early Monday after Thompson made a stunning revelation. The prosecutor said that an unknown woman drove to the north Twin Cities metro home of one of the jurors on Sunday evening, dropped off a Hallmark bag containing $120,000 in cash, and promised more in exchange for an acquittal vote.

The woman specifically mentioned the juror’s first name. Prosecutors said that one or more of the defendants was likely involved with the alleged bribery attempt because only they and the attorneys have access to the jurors’ names. Early on Wednesday, FBI agents went to Savage and searched the home of defendant Abdiaziz Farah. The search was first reported by KARE11. It’s not clear if other defendants’ residences were also searched.

The intended recipient of the money, identified in court only as juror 52, was not home at the time, but she later called 911 when her father-in-law informed her about the unexpected visitor.

Brasel dismissed the juror, a 23-year-old woman, and replaced her with an alternate. In granting the government’s motion to jail the defendants pending a verdict, Brasel said the juror “was terrified” and is at risk of retaliation. The judge also ordered that the jury be sequestered overnight in a hotel.

Brasel on Monday confirmed with the remaining 17 jurors and alternates that no one had contacted them about the case. But on Tuesday, Brasel replaced a second juror after the woman reported that her spouse had mentioned the bribery allegation when she called home to say she'd be staying overnight.

The FBI is investigating the jury tampering allegations and got a warrant from a magistrate judge to search the defendants’ phones after agents seized them.. An agent brought the phones into the courtroom in separate manila envelopes on Monday, and the defendants each provided their passcodes before U.S. marshals handcuffed them and took them to the Sherburne County Jail.