Who decided the Feeding Our Future verdicts?

The 12 jurors who deliberated the verdicts in the Feeding Our Future fraud trial all live in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, are largely in their 30s and most have college degrees.

They returned verdicts Friday afternoon, convicting Abdiaziz Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Nur, Hayat Nur and Mukhtar Shariff on several counts. The defendants were acquitted on a few counts.

Jurors acquitted Abdiwahab Aftin and Said Farah of all counts against them. The jury began its deliberations on Tuesday.

Most of the jurors told the court during jury selection that are casual news consumers; three said they don’t actively consume news.

“I don’t enjoy the news,” a pilot in his late 20s said during jury selection. “It’s just kind of divisive and not really something I enjoy thinking about.”

The jury consists of six women and six men, ranging in age from their late 20s to their late 60s, and appears to be all white. All seven defendants on trial are East African, as are most of the other defendants charged in related cases. Ethnicity and religion were key issues addressed during jury selection .

The jurors’ information was publicly shared during four days of jury selection that began on April 22. While juror names are not publicly disclosed during jury selection, other information like their age, educational background, work history and personal life experiences are commonly shared while judges and attorneys assess their ability to serve.

Jury selection is part of a defendant’s constitutional right to a public trial by an impartial jury, and is carried out in open court.

Most of the jurors who were seated for the trial had heard of the Feeding Our Future case, but none had read more than a few articles or watched a few news segments about it.

“I heard something about a charity and potential fraud involved,” a Minneapolis woman in her 40s who works in marketing said during jury selection. “I did not know there would be a case in court.”

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel questioned prospective jurors one-by-one in front of the defendants and their attorneys, prosecutors, the media and members of the public at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. Jurors for federal trials are drawn from across the entire state.

“I heard there had been an investigation—some type of fraud involved with COVID,” said a woman in her 50s who works for Ramsey County. “I believe it was in the newspaper, I’m not sure which one.”

“I heard about an organization called Feeding Our Future that was taking funds for COVID that were supposed to be going to feeding kids, and were not feeding kids,” said a retired therapeutic specialist in his 60s.

All of the jurors said they had not heard of other organizations implicated in the alleged fraud aside, such as Partners in Quality Care, Empire Cuisine & Market and ThinkTechAct Foundation.

The jurors who said they had heard about the case before jury selection said they had not formed opinions on whether the seven defendants on trial were guilty or innocent.

The retired therapeutic specialist came the closest to giving an opinion on the overall case.“I felt that if that was what was going on, I was not very happy to hear that,” he said. “That’s our taxpayer money, and it’s going to fraud.”

He emphasized that he hadn’t developed an opinion on whether the alleged fraud actually happened.

“Can you accept the fact of whether those kids were served [food] is an open question?” Brasel asked the juror.

“Yes,” he replied.

Impressions of East African immigrants

All prospective jurors were asked about their views on Islam and East African immigrants, and whether they would examine any unconscious biases they may have were they selected as a juror.

All said they had either positive or neutral views on Islam and East Africans, and all affirmed that they would examine their unconscious bias if selected. None said they were close friends with any East African immigrants, but most said they interact with people from the East African community in their day-to-day life.

The pilot said he occasionally has played pickup sports with East African immigrants.

“I’ve generally had positive experiences with them,” he said.

The therapeutic specialist said he developed relations with East African immigrants from his job at a hospital, and also had a few friends from the demographic in his neighborhood.

“It’s hard being an immigrant, I think, so my feeling is, I guess I’m in sympathy with that community, but I’m not really close with them,” he said.

“Will that impact your decision making as a juror?” Brasel asked.

“No,” he said.

The Ramsey County employee said she interacted with members of the community at work, and added that she once worked at a Somali restaurant on the West Bank while attending college at the University of Minnesota.

A man in his 20s employed at a freight trucking company said that he works with some East African immigrants.

A registered nurse in her 40s made similar statements.

“I interact with Muslim patients in my nursing duties, and I like them,” she said.

Resistance to serving

One juror, a teacher from the west metro, told the court that she had family vacations planned for the summer, and was serving as a matron of honor at a bachelorette party.

“Summer is a reprieve from the school year,” she said.

She mentioned that traffic between her home and Minneapolis is “a nightmare,” and that it took an hour to get to the courthouse.

She was seated on the jury.

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