The defendants carefully chose the juror and followed her home, watching her for days before approaching her with a bag of $120,000 cash in a bid to secure acquittals in this month’s federal meal fraud case, prosecutors said Wednesday.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced conspiracy charges against five people in what is believed to be Minnesota’s first criminal case of trying to bribe a federal juror in generations — including three who are accused of stealing money meant to feed hungry children in the first Feeding Our Future fraud case to go to trial.
“These defendants engaged in a chilling attack on our justice system,” Luger said at a news conference. “They sought to buy a juror and use her to infiltrate the jury with their own false arguments — arguments that had nothing to do with the law.”
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamad Ali are all being charged with conspiracy to bribe a juror, bribery of a juror and corruptly influencing a juror. All but Abdulkarim Farah and Ali were charged in the food aid fraud case that went to trial.
Abdiaziz Farah is also charged with one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting the contents of his phone when a judge ordered all seven defendants in the trial to turn over their phones after the bribery attempt was revealed.
According to charges, Ali was recruited by Nur and flew from her home in Seattle to offer the 23-year-old juror $120,000 in cash supplied by Said Farah, one of the defendants on trial, on June 2.
Juror No. 52, as she was known during jury selection, was allegedly targeted by the defendants because she was the youngest juror and appeared to be the only person of color. Luger said federal agents discovered on one of the defendant’s phones a detailed manual purportedly aimed at ordering the woman to sway the jury toward acquitting the seven people on trial.
“Fortunately for all of us, juror 52 could not be bought,” Luger added.