Feeding Our Future defendant pleads guilty in attempt to bribe juror with $120,000

One of the five defendants accused of attempting to bribe a juror in June during the first Feeding Our Future trial pleaded guilty Tuesday.

Abdimajid Nur, who was convicted last month of multiple felonies for his role in stealing tens of millions of dollars from the federal government, pleaded guilty to one count of bribing a juror and agreed with federal prosecutors on a recommended prison sentence of between five and 6½ years. A federal judge will ultimately decide Abdimajid’s prison sentence.

Abdimajid is one of five defendants accused of attempting to bribe a juror. The four others — Abdiaziz Farah, Said Farah, Abdulkarim Farah , and Ladan Ali — have all pleaded not guilty.

According to his plea deal, Abdimajid and the other defendants targeted Juror 52, a 23-year-old woman who served on the jury, because she was young and the only juror of color on the trial. This included researching Juror 52 online and through social media, from which they obtained her home address and information on her family.

Abdimajid and the other defendants decided to bribe Juror 52 in exchange for a guilty plea, according to his plea deal. Abdimajid then recruited Ladan, who lives in Seattle and was connected to a company that was involved in the Feeding Our Future case, to deliver the bribe to the juror in exchange for $150,000 for herself.

Ladan flew to Minneapolis in late May and surveilled Juror 52, according to the plea deal, which included following the juror’s car as she left court.

Abdimajid’s plea deal then contains the following narrative, which prosecutors haven’t previously disclosed: On June 1, Ladan told Abdimajid that she had met with Juror 52 in a bar and discussed the bribe with her. Ladan told Abdimajid that Juror 52 agreed to give a not guilty vote to the Feeding Our Future defendants in exchange for $500,000. Juror 52 then instructed Ladan to deliver the money to her when she was home alone.

According to Abdimajid’s plea deal, Ladan’s story about meeting Juror 52 was all a lie.

“None of this was true,” the plea deal reads. “Ladan Ali did not speak with Juror 52, and Juror 52 never agreed to accept a bribe.”

But Abdimajid believed Ladan’s story, according to the plea deal, and told Abdiaziz about it. Abdiaziz then said he would obtain the bribe money.

Said allegedly provided $200,000 for the bribe, according to charges in the case, and delivered it in a cardboard box to Abdimajid at Bushra Wholesalers, Said’s Minneapolis business. Abdimajid then met Ladan in a parking lot, where Ladan transferred the money to a gift bag.

Ladan then delivered the money to Juror 52’s home and spoke to her relative as Abdimajid video-recorded her across the street doing so. Previous charges in the case say that the bag contained $120,000. Prosecutors have not addressed what happened to the remaining $80,000 provided for the bribe.

Juror 52, who wasn’t home during Ladan’s visit, quickly reported the bribery attempt to police, according to prosecutors.

Four of the five suspects in the juror bribery case are currently in jail. Ladan was the only suspect who prosecutors didn’t move to detain, and a judge released her on her own recognizance last month. She is ordered to stay in Minnesota while her case proceeds.

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