Feeding Our Future defendant pleads guilty to jury bribery attempt
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One of the five people charged with trying to bribe a juror in the Feeding Our Future trial last month pleaded guilty Tuesday. Abdimajid Nur admitted that he handed a large amount of cash to a co-defendant whom he recruited to deliver the money to a juror’s home.
The bribery charges stem from the trial this spring of seven people connected to a small Shakopee restaurant who were accused of stealing $47 million dollars from government child nutrition programs by exploiting rule waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prosecutors said the scheme was part of a much larger plot by dozens of people with ties to the now defunct Twin Cities nonprofit Feeding Our Future to fleece taxpayers out of $250 million.
As the trial was winding down, Judge Nancy Brasel paused closing arguments on June 3 after a woman who’s identified publicly only as juror 52 reported that someone visited her house the evening before and left with a relative a Hallmark gift bag containing $120,000 and promised more cash in exchange for an acquittal vote.
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The juror called 911, and the FBI recovered the money. Brasel replaced the 23-year-old with an alternate juror, closing arguments resumed, and four days later the jury convicted five of the seven defendants and acquitted two others.
Investigators immediately suspected that one or more of the fraud trial defendants were involved in the bribery plot because the jurors’ names were known only to the defendants, the defense attorneys and prosecutors.
In late June, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office opened a separate criminal case and charged five people with jury bribery. Three were defendants in the original trial, and in a twist of irony, Said Farah, who’d been acquitted of the underlying fraud charges, now faces prison for his alleged role in the bribery scheme.
Nur, who was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering at the trial, spent about 40 minutes at a courtroom lectern on Tuesday confirming details of the plea agreement with his defense attorney Edward Sapone, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson and Judge David Doty.
Nur, 23, wearing a dark green Anoka County Jail jumpsuit, pleaded guilty to bribery of a juror. The government agreed to drop two other counts.
Nur admitted that he researched information about juror 52 online and recruited Ladan Ali to deliver the cash. Investigators say Ali, 31, flew from her home in Seattle specifically to help the others.
Nur said that he gave Ali a photo of the juror’s car and a map of the ramp where she parked during the trial. In court documents, prosecutors included surveillance photos of Ali’s rental car allegedly following the juror’s vehicle along Third Street near the Minneapolis federal courthouse.
Thompson also revealed new details about the bribery investigation, including that Nur arranged to pay Ali $150,000 to deliver the cash to juror 52. Thompson also said that on June 1, Ali falsely told Nur that she’d approached the juror in a bar and that the woman had demanded $500,000 in exchange for a not guilty verdict, and that the juror wanted the money delivered to her home at noon on June 2.
There is no indication that the juror ever met with Ali or any of the others charged in the bribery conspiracy. Thompson said at a previous hearing that the juror was “terrified” when she first spoke with police and can be seen crying in a video of her initial interview.
Bribery of a juror carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years and a $250,000 fine. Nur’s attorney and prosecutors agreed to a term of about 5 to 6½ years, but the ultimate decision on sentencing is up to Judge Doty. Nur’s sentence for the bribery charge will be separate from that of his wire fraud and money laundering convictions.
In court, Nur said he chose to plead guilty to the bribery charge because “I want to get on the right path.”
In separate hearings over the past several weeks, the other four charged in the bribery case each entered not guilty pleas. All except for Ali are jailed as the case moves forward.