23rd guilty plea upcoming in Feeding Our Future case

On Thursday, October 17, it’s expected that a 23rd guilty plea will be entered in the sprawling free-food scandal.

Farhiya Mohamud, Defendant No. 35 overall, will become Guilty Plea No. 23 in the case, if all goes according to script.

Farhiya, aged 65, is reportedly the mother of Sharmarke Issa, aged 42, one of the other defendants (No. 34) in the case, who has already plead guilty (No. 19).

Farhiya is accused of setting up shell corporations to assist her son and other co-conspirators in laundering money. She and Issa are two of nine defendants indicted as part of the Haji’s Kitchen group. Farhiya is named in 10 counts (26, 30, 40, 42, 46, 53, 54, 56, 58, and 65) in the money laundering section of the indictment.

One of the nine in the Haji group (Fahad Nur) has fled the country. Seven others have already pled guilty. If Farhiya follows suit on Thursday, then the trial for this group of defendants, scheduled to being next month, will be cancelled.

Also coming up this week (Tuesday, October 15), we will see our first ever sentence handed down in the case. Mohamed Ismail, aged 51, Defendant No. 16, was convicted at trial earlier this year.

And on Wednesday, Aimee Bock, Defendant No. 1 in the case, will appear in court to explain how she got her hands on a secret $186,000 student loan line of credit.

To keep all of this (and more) straight, I recorded this 20-minute video update last week.