After 5 weeks, Feeding Our Future trial wraps with closing arguments

Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Friday presented their closing arguments in the Feeding Our Future trial. Seven people with ties to a small Shakopee restaurant are accused of stealing $47 million from federal child nutrition programs during the pandemic.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson spent two hours recapping the evidence that he and his colleagues presented throughout the five-week proceeding. He said the defendants took advantage of the pandemic to enrich themselves by exploiting programs that were “not designed to make people wealthy” and were established to ensure that kids received nutritious meals when school was not in session.

Thompson noted that it’s easy to get desensitized to the sheer amount of money stolen after seeing bank records and deposits of “check after check” for five and six figure amounts, but that “no one’s bank account looks like that.”

Thompson also reminded jurors of the thousands of pages of evidence that included fraudulent reimbursement requests for 18 million meals, as well as attendance rosters with fake children’s names.

The prosecutor noted that the defendants served some food at a mosque and a school in Bloomington and other locations, but said “if you’re going to defraud the federal child nutrition program, you have to do something to make it look good.”

Since late 2022, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged dozens of people in connection with what they allege was a widespread conspiracy to steal $250 million by falsifying reimbursement requests for 18 million meals. Of the 70 charged, 18 have pleaded guilty. Investigators have recovered around $66 million in assets, including $7.6 million in cash from bank accounts controlled by the seven defendants who were the first to face trial.

After Thompson presented his closing argument, Andrew Birrell, who represents Empire Cuisine and Market co-owner Abdiaziz Farah, said that investigators never crunched the numbers on the millions of dollars in food that was distributed to families.

Birrell said, for example, a $10 bag of rice covered the grain requirement for 160 meals, a figure that multiplied many times over accounts for the large number of meals claimed for reimbursement.  

Patrick Cotter, who represents defendant Mohamed Ismail blamed “regulatory confusion and failed communication” between government agencies and the nonprofit site sponsors Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition. Cotter said the myriad of rule changes during the pandemic were difficult to follow, and failure to follow those rules to a T doesn’t mean that his client is guilty of fraud.

Birrell, Cotter, and other defense attorneys noted that federal investigators did not visit the meal distribution sites despite their concerns about fraud.

Six of defendants in this trial opted not to present any witnesses or testify themselves. But a seventh, Mukhtar Shariff, the CEO of a company called Afrique Hospitality testified on Thursday that he distributed bags of groceries to families in need.

Shariff was the CEO of a company called Afrique Hospitality, an event center in Bloomington. Federal prosecutors allege that he built the business in 2021 with money that he and his co-conspirators stole from taxpayers.

Under direct examination by Fred Goetz, one of his defense attorneys, Shariff told jurors about starting multiple businesses while working in the IT industry in Seattle before moving to Minnesota in 2020 to start his most recent venture.

Goetz showed a slide from his client’s pitch to investors that mentions hedging “the risk and volatility of the hospitality business with large consistent revenue from food service contracts.” The slide specifically mentions the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service Program, which the defendants are accused of defrauding, but Shariff said he didn’t know much about those programs at the time he started Afrique. 

While the event center was under construction, Shariff said he worked with staff at the nearby Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center to distribute bags of groceries to families in need. Goetz showed photos and videos of people lined up to collect the food, and Shariff said he never knowingly made any false statements or paid any bribes related to the government programs. 

By taking the stand, Shariff waived his right to remain silent and subjected himself to cross examination from the prosecution.

Thompson asked Shariff about that business pitch, noting that investigators found it in an email dated December 31, 2020 and that the mosque meal site that Shariff controlled started submitting reimbursement claims for thousands of meals purportedly served the next day on January 1, 2021. 

Before Shariff took the stand, several other defense witnesses testified that they received food at Dar Al Farooq, and a salesman from the distributor Sysco verified the authenticity of invoices showing that Afrique bought $1.6 million worth of food in 2021.  

Shariff responded that he didn’t handle the claims, because he was busy handling the logistics of distributing the food. 

Thompson then displayed an invoice that Shariff emailed to Feeding Our Future for nearly $500,000 for food that he claimed was served at Dar Al Farooq and two other sites. The prosecutor continued showing reimbursement requests for 3,200 meals served each day for a week in September 2021. 

“I’m not vouching for the exact numbers. I have no reason to believe they were inaccurate,” Shariff said.

Thompson then confronted Shariff with dozens of five and six figure checks that were paid to Afrique and Shariff’s consulting company throughout 2021. Many were from nonprofits and businesses controlled by other people indicted in this case and included words such as “supplies” and “consulting” on the memo lines.

Shariff claimed not to know what the money was for, including a $95,000 check from co-defendant Mahad Ibrahim.

Thompson also asked Shariff about his consulting work for Empire Cuisine and Market, and whether he was aware that the small restaurant received nearly $30 million in child nutrition program.

Shariff answered “I’ve done consulting for a lot of companies over the years, and I don’t concern myself with their revenue.”

A few minutes later, Thompson noted Shariff’s work in the tech industry and asked: “Do you find that odd? You used to be a tech consultant…[and] it’s a child nutrition program that’s the most lucrative?” Shariff replied that he did a lot of work in 2021 and that he was compensated for that work.

Attorneys for several additional defendants are expected to present their closing arguments on Monday before jurors begin their deliberations.

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