Attorney Clayton Carlson, right; defendant Said Farah, center; and attorney Steve Schleicher, right, enter the federal courthouse on May 8, 2024.
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The last defendant in the Feeding Our Future jury bribery case pleaded guilty Thursday morning for his role in trying to buy acquittals with $120,000 in cash.
Said Farah, 43, of Minneapolis, is the fifth and final defendant in the bribery case to admit guilt. He provided some of the $200,000 to his co-conspirators for the bribe.
He pleaded guilty to one count of bribery of a juror and agreed with prosecutors’ recommendation for a sentence of between roughly five to six-and-a-half years in prison. A federal judge will decide Said Farah’s sentence at a later date.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, Said Farah waved to four supporters as he was escorted into the courtroom by two U.S. Marshal officers. He answered “yes” to questions by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert and U.S. District Judge David Doty during his guilty plea.
“Do you think you are guilty of the charge?” Doty asked.
“Yes,” Said Farah answered.
“How do you now plea?” Doty asked.
“Guilty,” Said Farah said after a short pause.
The bribery case emerged during a federal fraud trial connected to the Feeding Our Future investigation. Said Farah and six others were tried in the fraud case in 2024.
The bribery attempt rocked the end of the trial, as three of the defendants in that trial singled out the only juror of color and offered her money in exchange for a not guilty vote during deliberations.
In the weeks leading up to jury deliberations, Said Farah’s co-conspirators researched the juror online and tracked her movements after the court day ended in their fraud trial, following her home. They recruited two people who were not connected to the Feeding Our Future case to help them carry out the bribe.
Said Farah, who Ebert described during the hearing as a “minor player” in the bribery scheme, helped collect some of the cash used for the bribe, but was not personally involved with contacting the juror. One of the bribery co-conspirators, Ladan Ali, said she took some cash for herself, so she only ended up delivering $120,000 to the juror.
New details of the bribery were revealed by Ebert during Thursday’s guilty plea: Said Farah admitted to gathering the bribery money with the help of a defendant charged in the broader Feeding Our Future case. That defendant, who prosecutors described as a former Feeding Our Future employee, has not been named or charged in the bribery case.
Ebert said in court that Said Farah and the unnamed defendant collected cash for the bribe from “multiple people” and a hawala at Karmel Mall in Minneapolis. A hawala is a system used to transfer money abroad.
Federal prosecutors and Said Farah’s attorney declined to comment when reporters asked which Feeding Our Future defendant helped Said Farah raise the money.
When Ladan Ali arrived at the juror’s home on June 2, 2024, she knocked on the juror’s door and spoke to her relative, promising him that there would be more money if the juror voted not guilty. The juror, a 23-year-old woman, was not home during the exchange. The juror reported the incident to the police when she got home, and was excused from the trial.
The next morning, as closing arguments were scheduled in the fraud trial, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson announced the bribery attempt to a shocked courtroom.
“This is outrageous behavior. This is the stuff that happens in mob movies,” Thompson told the court that day.
Jurors acquitted Said Farah and another defendant of all fraud-related charges at the end of the Feeding Our Future trial. But his freedom didn’t last long. Less than one month after his acquittal, prosecutors charged him and four others in the jury bribery case.
Abdiaziz Farah, Abdulkarim Farah, Abdimajid Nur and Ladan Ali previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the bribery case. Abdiaziz Farah and Abdimajid Nur had also been tried in the Feeding Our Future fraud trial.
The broader Feeding Our Future case involved at least 73 defendants allegedly defrauding the federal government of $300 million to $400 million meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prosecutors previously said the theft amounted to about $250 million, but recently updated that figure.
The Minnesota Department of Education disbursed federal funds to Feeding Our Future, which then distributed that money to food vendors and food sites that were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.
Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did, or never served any at all, in order to receive more federal reimbursement dollars, according to prosecutors.
To date, 52 of the 73 defendants charged have either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial; two were acquitted and the rest currently await trial.
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