Prosecution, defense make a last stand in Feeding Our Future trial before jurors begin deliberations

Prosecutors urged jurors Friday to convict all seven defendants in the Feeding Our Future fraud trial, saying that they stole $41 million from the federal government that was meant to feed underserved children.

Prosecutors and several defense teams gave their closing arguments Friday, bringing the six-week trial that began April 22 close to an end. Three of the seven defense teams will give their closing arguments on Monday, June 3, due to the large number of defendants being jointly tried in one trial.

Jurors will begin deliberating after the last closing arguments, which allow prosecutors and defense attorneys to summarize their stance on the cases.

In their closing arguments, three defense teams painted a picture of a flawed and incomplete FBI investigation, stating that the government hadn’t proven its case.

“The Bible said that a house built on sand will fall,” said defense attorney Edward Sapone, who represents Abdimajid Nur. “This prosecution was built on sand, and it only takes a little bit of wind to make it fall.”

They also criticized the federal investigation for focusing on money and not on comparing the amount of food the defendants purchased with the number of meals they reported serving.

“The government focused in a wrong way, and like an old warship, they never turned around,” Sapone said.

The defendants are being tried on a total of 41 criminal charges, including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. Prosecutors called 33 witnesses and submitted more than 1,000 exhibits while presenting their case over four weeks. Only one of the seven defendants, Mukhtar Shariff, testified in his own defense and called witnesses to the stand.

Prosecution’s closing arguments

U.S. Assistant Attorney Joe Thompson gave closing arguments for the prosecution Friday morning, asking jurors to remember how normal life came to a sudden stop at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prosecutors allege that the defendants are part of a larger scheme that stole $250 million from the federal Child Nutrition Program that was meant to feed children after schools closed during the pandemic.

“It was our kids who in many ways had it the hardest,” Thompson said.

Thompson said it had been a few days since children had been referenced at the trial. The prosecution rested its case Tuesday; Mukhtar’s defense called witnesses Wednesday through Thursday. Thompson said he wanted to remind the jury about the federal program’s purpose—to feed children nutritious meals that they could no longer access at school.

“It wasn’t a get-rich-quick scheme,” Thompson said. “It was a program for children, I don’t want that to get lost here.”

The trial is part of a larger investigation into the alleged theft of $250 million from the Child Nutrition Program. Seventy defendants have been charged in what has become known as the Feeding Our Future case; 18 have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

The alleged fraud involved the Minnesota Department of Education distributing federal funds to sponsor organizations like Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care. The sponsor organizations then dispersed those funds to food vendors and food sites, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.

Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did—or simply never served any meals at all—in order to receive more federal funds, prosecutors say, and allegedly spent the money on cars, property, vacations and other items.

Thompson said in his closing arguments that school officials used the program correctly and provided meals. He said the defendants on trial instead saw an opportunity to take advantage of vulnerable children. Prosecutors presented evidence at trial that many of the organizations were newly created during the pandemic to participate in the federal food program.

“Rather than step up to help others in their time of need, the defendants helped themselves,” Thompson said.

Thompson then went through each defendant’s alleged actions, and each criminal count filed against them. He showed the jury emails the defendants sent that allegedly contained falsified numbers of meals served and rosters of made-up children’s names. He showed copies of checks he said the defendants sent to Feeding Our Future employees as kickbacks so they would receive preferential treatment.

Thompson said that while Mukhtar’s defense showed pictures at trial that depicted bags of food—perhaps dozens or hundreds—it was nowhere near the thousands of meals the defendants claimed to serve daily.

The alleged scheme was “staggering” and the evidence was “overwhelming,” he told jurors, adding that it’s easy to get desensitized to the large amount of money that was shuffled between different bank accounts to hide its source.

“It’s actually crazy, and again, you can get desensitized to it,” Thompson said.

He called defendant Abdiaziz Farah the “ring leader” of the defendants on trial. Some co-defendants, like Hayat Nur, played an important part in the fraud even if they had a smaller role, he said.

He showed the jury pictures of items the defendants allegedly bought with the stolen funds, including cars and homes. He also displayed Whatsapp messages between the defendants that discussed how to divide the money they received between them.

“Bro the next multi legit millionaires will be me and you,” read a message Abdiaziz sent to Mahad Ibrahim, a defendant charged in the case who will go to trial at a later date.

Thompson said the defendants knew what they were doing, and that when the Department of Education put more rules in place for the program, the defendants continued to work around them to get money.

Thompson spoke for about two hours before ending his closing arguments by asking jurors to return guilty verdicts on all counts against all of the defendants.

“In short,” he said, “they exploited the pandemic to enrich themselves.”

Defense teams’ closing arguments

Defense attorney Patrick Cotter, who is representing Mohamed Ismail, argued that the prosecution never presented jurors with a mathematical formula comparing the amount of food provided with the amount of money received through federal reimbursements.

“That ends this case, that ends the case right there,” Cotter said, raising his voice and banging the podium. “They [prosecutors] didn’t do this. They choose not to do it.”

Expanding on this argument, Andrew Birrell, an attorney for defendant Abdiaziz Farah, said that the federal food program’s grain requirement in a meal is one ounce. A 10-pound bag of rice costs $10 and contains 160 ounces of rice, he said.

“If Empire [Cuisine & Market] buys a bag of rice, that’s enough to fill 160 meals” in terms of the grain requirement, Birrell said, referring to his client’s business.

Birrell argued that his client could legally earn a profit from the food program if you calculate the reimbursement dollars he received compared to the cost of providing a grain, milk, vegetable and protein for each meal.

The prosecution never called any food experts, nutritionists or food scientists to testify about how the defendants’ reports on the number of meals they served allegedly didn’t add up, Birrell argued. Instead, he said, prosecutors called FBI accountants who specialize in monetary transactions, and who are not familiar with the workings of the Child Nutrition Program.

“Every time we bring up food, the government brings up money,” Birrell said.

Birrell painted Abdiaziz as a victim of poor oversight from the Minnesota Department of Education and two sponsors, Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care. The sponsors were supposed to review the reports of meals served before submitting them to the Minnesota Department of Education, which could further vet them for accuracy.

“He got caught between two warring sponsors and an incompetent government agency that was supposed to be looking over this process and helping people do it right, but was not,” he said.

Birrell and Cotter questioned why the investigation treated Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care differently. Aimee Bock, the former executive director of Feeding Our Future, was indicted in the case, but no one with Partners in Quality Care has been charged.

The name of Partner’s former executive director, Kara Lomen, surfaced repeatedly during trial, and her email address is on emails that are the basis for several wire fraud charges in the case. Most of the defendants on trial used Partners in Quality Care as a sponsor.

Lomen never testified at trial, Cotter told jurors while displaying a picture of Lomen that prosecutors entered into evidence earlier in the trial.

“She’s the one that runs the black box as to how this program works,” Cotter said. “She’s a missing link and that should end this case.”

Sapone called the Lomen’s absence as a trial witness “a gaping hole” in the prosecution.

Cotter and other defense attorneys criticized the investigation for not surveilling their clients’ food sites or interviewing them in 2021—the time period under scrutiny in the trial. They also criticized the FBI for approaching some witnesses months before trial to testify instead of interviewing them three years ago.

Prosecutors called several witnesses who worked at or near sites where food was reportedly distributed, and said they saw few-to-no meals being given away. Defense attorneys showed in their cross-examination at trial that many of those witnesses weren’t approached by the FBI until recently.

“It’s embarrassing they brought all these people in a month or two before the trial,” Cotter said. “Embarrassing.”

Defense attorneys repeatedly attacked the credibility of Hadith Ahmed, a former Feeding Our Future employee who testified at trial that fraud was rampant in the food program. Defense attorneys noted that he met with the FBI and prosecutors 12 times and prepared extensively for his testimony.

Sapone said Hadith knew everything on direct examination by prosecutors, and nothing on cross-examination by defense attorneys. Hadith answered, “I don’t know,” or, “I don’t recall,” 80 times when questioned by defense attorneys, he told jurors. Hadith also testified that he was cooperating with authorities because he wanted a lower prison sentence; he pleaded guilty to his role in the fraud and is awaiting sentencing.

“Would you even buy a vacuum cleaner from him?” Sapone asked jurors.

Steve Schleicher, who is representing defendant Said Farah, pointed out inconsistencies in prosecutors’ statements about his client’s company, Bushra Wholesalers. Prosecutors allege that Said used Bushra to launder money. Schleicher told jurors that prosecutors called Bushra a shell company, but that the company had a warehouse, employees, and operations.

“On opening statements, the government looked each and every one of you in the eye and said Bushra Wholesalers was a shell company,” Schleicher said. “That statement was false.”

Schleicher noted that an FBI accountant testified under his cross-examination that Bushra didn’t fit the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s definition of a shell company.

Schleicher said the FBI investigation is “infected with confirmation bias.” He recalled asking an FBI accountant at trial why agents didn’t visit Bushra’s warehouse or look at the company’s food invoices. She answered that she didn’t need to look at the warehouse or consider the invoices, he reminded jurors.

Schleicher brushed aside the hundreds of checks, bank records, and other financial documentation prosecutors submitted as evidence throughout the trial.

“Bring a banker’s boxes full of them and dump them on the floor—it doesn’t matter,” Schleicher said. “Not without context.”

Who’s on trial?

The defendants on trial are facing a total of 41 charges, including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. They mostly worked for businesses that used Partners in Quality Care as a sponsor.

The defendants are:

• Abdiaziz Farah co-owned Empire Cuisine and Market. Federal prosecutors allege that the Shakopee-based deli and grocery store posed as a meals provider for several food sites, and defrauded the government out of $28 million. Abdiaziz allegedly pocketed more than $8 million for himself. He is also charged with lying on an application to renew his passport after federal agents seized his passport as part of their investigation.

• Mohamed Jama Ismail co-owned Empire Cuisine and Market. Mohamed is Abdiziz’s uncle. He is also owner of MZ Market LLC, which prosecutors allege was a shell company used to launder the stolen money. Mohamed allegedly pocketed $2.2 million. He previously pleaded guilty to passport fraud.

• Abdimajid Nur allegedly created a shell company, Nur Consulting, and laundered stolen money from Empire Cuisine and ThinkTechAct, other alleged shell companies. Abdimajid, who was 21 at the time of his indictment, allegedly pocketed $900,000.

• Hayat Nur allegedly submitted fake meal counts and invoices served at food sites. Court documents identify Hayat as Abdimajid’s sister. Hayat allegedly pocketed $30,000.

• Said Farah co-owned Bushra Wholesalers, which allegedly laundered money by claiming to be a food vendor that provided meals to food sites that then reportedly served children. Court documents identify Said as Abdiaziz’s brother. Said allegedly pocketed more than $1 million.

• Abdiwahab Aftin co-owned Bushra Wholesalers, and allegedly pocketed $435,000.

• Mukhtar Shariff served as CEO of Afrique Hospitality Group, and allegedly used the company to launder stolen money. He allegedly pocketed more than $1.3 million.

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