Five charged with attempting to bribe juror with $120,000 in Minnesota

The Department of Justice is charging five people in Minnesota for their part in a conspiracy to bribe a juror $120,000.

The charges come after one juror reported being approached by a woman with a bribe to acquit the defendants in the Feeding Our Future scheme. Five of seven defendants were found guilty of receiving $40 million from the Department of Agriculture as part of a fraudulent scheme aimed to exploit government funding.

“As part of the scheme, the conspirators decided to target Juror 52 because she was the youngest juror and they believed her to be the only juror of color. The conspirators conducted online research to obtain Juror 52’s personal information, including her home address and information about her background and family members,” a press release from the Justice Department said.

The release said the conspirators conducted surveillance on her home to confirm her address and track her daily habits. One of them later followed Juror 52 as she left the courthouse, then purchased a “GPS tracking device to covertly install on Juror 52’s car in order to track her movements.”

The conspirators obtained approximately $200,000 in cash to be delivered and paid to Juror 52 as a bribe in exchange for a not-guilty verdict in the trial. The conspirators drafted a list of instructions for Juror 52 that included directions for her to vote “NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS FOR ALL DEFENDANTS” and to “convince all the remaining jurors to mark NOT GUILTY for all defendants and all counts."

Court documents show that one of the conspirators flew from Seattle to Minneapolis to execute the attempted bribery.

Ladan Mohamed Ali, one of the people charged, “approached the house and handed the gift bag containing $120,000 in bribe money to a relative of Juror 52 and explained that the money was a present in exchange for a not guilty verdict. Ali promised that there would be more money if Juror 52 voted to acquit all the defendants.”

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The entire exchange between Ali and the juror was captured on video by another person charged.

All five are being charged with conspiracy to bribe a juror, bribery of a juror, and corruptly influencing a juror. One is also charged with obstruction of justice.