New charges: Feeding Our Future juror was followed for days, given list of instructions with $120k in cash to acquit

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.

The bribe attempt happened after a weekend of surveillance that began with Ali following the juror from her parking spot near the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis on a Friday. When Ali allegedly dropped off the bag of cash, according to charges, Abdulkarim Farah, 24, of Minneapolis, recorded the encounter from his seat in a rental car.

The brothers Farah — Abdiaziz, Said and Abdulkarim — made their first appearances on the new charges Tuesday in federal court in St. Paul. U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko ordered all three to remain in custody ahead of a Monday detention hearing and arraignment, at which time they will be asked to enter pleas on the new charges.

The three will have attorneys appointed for them by the Office of the Federal Defender, something that Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson opposed while citing significant assets stashed overseas. Ali, who is expected to surrender to authorities, is expected in court Thursday for her initial appearance. An initial appearance has yet to be scheduled for Nur.

Speaking earlier about Abdiaziz Farah, Thompson described him as “obviously” having a “significant risk of flight in light of the massive sentence he is facing on what he’s already been convicted.

“And now he is charged with in some ways the most significant crime that’s been charged in this district in a very long time,” Thompson said.

Thompson said the co-defendants in the case identified juror 52 during jury selection in the trial, which started in April, believing her to be someone they “could recruit.”

Luger on Wednesday described Abdiaziz Farah as organizing the conspiracy. Nur recruited Ali and gave her the box of bribe money, and Abdulkarim Farah helped Ali surveil juror 52 to learn more about her.

In what prosecutors have called one of the largest pandemic-era fraud cases in the United States, 70 people so far have been charged in Minnesota with stealing $250 million from federal food programs, which reimburse nonprofits, schools and day cares for feeding low-income children after school and during the summer. This month’s trial was the first one for seven of the 70 defendants; another 18 defendants have pleaded guilty.

Of the seven defendants, Abdiaziz Farah and Nur were among five defendants convicted on the majority of the felony charges they faced, including wire fraud conspiracy. Said Farah was one of two defendants acquitted.

The seven defendants had ties to a Shakopee restaurant and received about $40 million for claiming to serve 18 million meals across Minnesota. Prosecutors presented 1,300 exhibits to the jury to make the case that they submitted phony invoices to the government, along with rosters of made-up children’s names and improbably high meal count forms.

Prosecutors alleged Abdiaziz Farah, 35, of Savage was the ringleader of the food fraud scheme. His brother Said Farah, 42, of Minneapolis was acquitted by the jury of charges related to running a Minneapolis wholesaler with another defendant. Abdimajid Nur, 23, of Shakopee was convicted of charges related to his role creating and submitting fake food invoices; his attorney, Edward Sapone, had argued during the trial that he was a young adult enlisted in the U.S. Army who didn’t knowingly commit fraud. His 27-year-old sister, Hayat Nur, was also convicted.

All seven defendants on trial were placed in custody before the jury reached its verdict because of the attempted bribery.

“You alone can end this case. Always do your best to convince other jurors to vote NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS FOR ALL DEFENDANTS,” read an instruction manual found on one defendant’s phone, which also reiterated arguments made by defense attorneys during trial about the lack of evidence in the case and unreliable witnesses called by prosecutors.

The draft appears aimed at ordering juror 52 to convince other jurors that the government targeted the defendants because of their race: “We are immigrants: they don’t respect and care about us.”

The juror immediately reported the incident to police and was excused from jury duty the morning after the attempt.

According to the new charges announced Wednesday, agents found evidence that members of the conspiracy allegedly purchased a tracking device to use on the juror’s car, but it arrived late. The charges did not detail Ali’s relationship to the other defendants in this case, and Luger said only that “they knew her well enough to recruit her.”

Ali used the juror’s first name even though the jury’s names were never made public, and only available briefly to attorneys and defendants during jury selection. Attorneys said in court June 3 after the bribery incident that two juror lists that were supposed to have been returned to the court had gone missing after jury selection.

In a rare move, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel sequestered jurors for four nights until they reached a verdict, citing their safety. She also added security to the courtroom and confiscated defendants’ phones to investigate the leak of juror names. But Abdiaziz Farah, sitting before Brasel in the courtroom, allegedly initiated a “hard factory reset” on his phone, nearly wiping out all of its contents, according to prosecutors.

According to the new charges announced Wednesday, FBI agents who searched Abdiaziz Farah’s home after the bribery attempt discovered a list of jurors’ names hidden in a clear water bottle. The FBI also found Ali’s fingerprints on the bag of cash dropped off at the home of juror 52. When the incident was announced in court on June 3, Ali, who was offered $150,000 for delivering the bribe, allegedly booked a flight back to Seattle earlier than planned.

It is unclear when the alleged conspiracy to bribe a juror began. Federal prosecutors have no evidence that any of the attorneys representing the seven defendants who stood trial had any knowledge of the alleged bribery scheme.

The defense attorneys all condemned the incident in court on June 3, calling it “un-American,” “very troubling,” “horrific” and “unprecedented.” Several attorneys noted how rare juror bribery is in the U.S., recalling only a 1980s and 1990s New York case where a juror was paid to acquit a mob boss.

The case could have broader implications for how federal jury trials may unfold in Minnesota, as Luger said his office now plans to examine every criminal trial with this alleged bribery attempt in mind. This could include requesting anonymous or sequestered juries in some cases.