Feeding Our Future: back from the dead

This month’s dramatic court verdicts in the Feeding Our Future {FOF} case (“guilty on all counts”) don’t mark the end of the saga. In Churchillian terms, it’s more like “the end of the beginning.”

The action continues in other courtrooms, federal and state, at all levels. A major player, Partners in Nutrition, is even asking the state Court of Appeals for reinstatement to the free-food program. A decision is expected later this spring.

But let’s take events in chronological and hierarchical order.

This Wednesday, April 2, a guilty plea is expected to be entered in the related attempted juror bribery case. Abdulkarim Farah is the younger brother of two other defendants in the case. This Farah was not charged in the broader fraud scheme. An earlier guilty plea attempt was snowed out and had to be rescheduled. It will mark the third guilty plea among the five defendants in the bribery case. Only the two older Farah brothers remain.

Status conferences are upcoming for the defendants associated with former Feeding Our Future employee Ikram Mohammed. Their trials are expected near the end of the year. Three will appear in court on April 3, with another batch of three to appear on April 7.

Finally, on April 10, a sentencing is scheduled for Sahra Nur, Defendant No. 24 in the overall fraud case and one associated with the S&S Catering group of defendants. Her plea agreement, filed back in Sept. 2023, called for a sentence of between 4 and 5 years in prison. A number of items were also subject to forfeiture. Ms. Nur appears to be partial to gold jewelry. She will become only the fourth defendant sentenced in the case.

For those interested in a retrospective of the fraud/bribery case to date, reporter Lou Raguse of KARE-11 TV is out with an excellent 44-minute special report/documentary, which can be viewed here.

Ironically, on the same day (March 19) the Aimee Bock/Salim Said verdicts were handed down in federal court, another controversial free-food nonprofit was seeking re-entry into the program. MPR News reports,

A Twin Cities nonprofit investigated alongside Feeding Our Future is fighting to resume its participation in a taxpayer-funded food program. On the same day that a jury convicted Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock in the major meal fraud scheme, an attorney for Partners in Quality Care [PIQC] was in another courthouse asking a panel of judges to reinstate the group.

Of the 70 people charged in the Feeding Our Future case, none worked directly for Partners in Quality Care, which is also known as Partners in Nutrition.

Partners in Nutrition had the chutzpah to file this latest appeal just one month after 5 guilty verdicts were pronounced in federal court last spring. The nonprofit was prominently and frequently mentioned in that first FOF courtroom trial, but nonetheless, filed their case in the state Court of Appeals.

Specifically, the nonprofit was appealing the following decision reached by the state Department of Education (MDE),

Among those disqualified were PIQC founder and former CEO, Kara Lomen, and a former board member, Julius Scarver. Both names have been mentioned during the FOF trials.

In a somewhat related effort, in state district court, MN Attorney General Keith Ellison is pressing his case against Nolosha, the developers of a controversial housing project slated for Lakeville. The piece of real estate involved is associated with FOF Defendant No. 58, Ayan Abukar, and is subject to forfeiture in the food-fraud case. A promised November closing on the parcel appears to have never happened. Sahan Journal reports.

Everyone asks how much money has been recovered from the estimated $250 million free-food fraud. The Star Tribune dug deeper into that topic last week, reporting,

How much of the $250 million that prosecutors say was diverted by dozens of fraudsters in 2020 and 2021 with the help of Bock’s St. Anthony nonprofit will ever be returned to taxpayers?

The answer appears to be something in the $75 million range. But how much of that can be converted into hard cash for return to taxpayers? The Star Tribune quotes lead prosecutor Joe Thompson,

So far, Thompson said, investigators have seized $35 million in cash plus cars and real estate that originally cost $40 million. But he said those cars have been depreciating for three years, and real estate values are fluctuating.

It also will cost money to liquidate those assets, Thompson said, a process that can’t start until defendants have been convicted and sentenced.

Later in that same story, the Star Tribune quotes Thompson,

So was $250 million really stolen? Thompson said the figure could be closer to $300 million, noting that many of the defendants were also under the supervision of Partners in Nutrition, a St. Paul nonprofit whose leaders have not been charged with any crimes.

So, it all comes full circle.