Former Minneapolis official pleads guilty to stealing $3.6 million in Feeding Our Future case

A former Minneapolis city official who was supposed to advocate for low-income housing pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing money meant to feed underprivileged children and using it for personal expenses, including a $700,000 house.

Sharmarke Issa, 42, served as board chair of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) for nearly three years. In this role, Sharmarke was the first Somali in the nation to serve on a governing body of a public housing agency.

Sharmarke declined to comment after his hearing.

Dressed in a light plaid checkered shirt, blue jeans and wearing a surgical mask, Sharmarke spoke plainly and clearly as he answered “yes” to questions from Brever, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert and U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel.

“Do you agree from in or about June 2020 to in or about 2022, you knowingly participated in a scheme to defraud the child nutrition program?” Ebert asked Sharmarke at one point.

“Yes,” Sharmarke said.

Later, Brasel asked him how he intended to plead.

“Guilty, ma’am,” Sharmarke replied.

Sharmarke admitted to depositing $341,000 from Haji Osman, another defendant in the case, into his bank account Sharmarke said that although he marked the deposit as a donation, he was really laundering money obtained through fraud.

Sharmarke and federal prosecutors agreed to a recommended prison sentence of between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 years, and a restitution payment of roughly $3.6 million. The restitution equals the amount of money Sharmarke personally profited from in the scheme, although he admitted to defrauding the federal government out of $7.6 million in federal child nutrition money between June 2020 and the early months of 2022.

Sharmarke resigned from his position at the MPHA in February 2022, shortly after a filing for forfeiture of a building he co-owned that linked him to the Feeding Our Future fraud investigation. Federal prosecutors say that the building was purchased with stolen money from the federal Child Nutrition Programs.

Federal prosecutors subsequently charged Sharmarke later that year.

Sharmarke ran a company called Minnesota’s Somali Community, which operated several food sites that participated in the federal Child Nutrition Programs. The programs provided federal funds to the Minnesota Department of Education, which disbursed it to nonprofits that served as sponsors.

The nonprofits then distributed the money between smaller organizations that were supposed to use the funds to feed underserved children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharmarke also operated a restaurant that served as a food site and ran several shell companies that allegedly participated in the scheme, including one with his mother, Fahiyra Mohamud, who is also charged in the case.

According to the charges against him, Sharmarke ran sites that claimed to serve 2.3 million children. He also received $1.1 million from Minnesota’s Somali Community, and spent the money on lavish items like a $700,000 home in Edina.

Sharmarke agreed to hand over the home and other properties he owns to the federal government as part of the plea deal.

Sharmarke used the nonprofits Partners in Quality Care and Feeding Our Future as sponsors for his food sites.

Minneapolis Mayor Frey appointed Sharmarke to the board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority in 2019. Frey had appointed Sharmarke to a second three-year term on the board before he resigned from the position. MPHA is the largest public housing body in the state.

When Sharmarke’s name first surfaced in 2022 as part of the case, Frey said the allegations against him were “appalling” and “run counter to the values that we are entrusted to uphold in the City of Minneapolis.”

Similarly, MPHA Executive Director and CEO Abdi Warsame said he was “shocked and saddened” by the developments involving Sharmarke.

Sharmarke immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee when he was 11, and lived in public housing in Minneapolis in his youth. During the time he was appointed to the board of MPHA, he described himself as “humbled.”

“I believe that everyone has a fundamental human right to housing, which ensures access to a safe, secure, habitable, and affordable home,” he told Insight News at the time.

Federal prosecutors charged 70 total defendants in the Feeding Our Future case.

Sharmarke is the 19th defendant in the case expected to plead guilty. Jurors convicted five more defendants in the first trial in the case earlier this year. They also fully acquitted two other defendants in that trial, although one of those defendants has since been charged with jury tampering.

Sharmarke was initially scheduled to go to trial in November along with eight other defendants. He is the fourth in that case to plead guilty; two more defendants, including Haji, are expected to plead guilty later this week. An additional defendant, Fahad Nur, fled the country in early 2022 and remains a fugitive.

That would leave two defendants, including Sharmarke’s mother, scheduled for the joint trial starting November 5.

The post Former Minneapolis official pleads guilty to stealing $3.6 million in Feeding Our Future case appeared first on Sahan Journal .