Feeding Our Future: Hibo Daar kept in custody

Defendant No. 71, Hibo Daar, was formally arraigned in Federal Court this morning in downtown Minneapolis. She entered a plea of not guilty.

Your correspondent was there. Except where specifically noted, no person or company mentioned below has been accused of any wrongdoing in the sprawling free-food scandal.

Daar, ago 50, is accused of two counts of felony wire fraud. Her nonprofit Northwest Wellness Center took nearly $1.8 million out of the free-food program in 2021, according to prosecutors.

After the formal arraignment, the rest of her court appearance was taken up with a detention hearing. She has been held in federal custody since being arrested at the airport on May 25 before she could board a Delta flight to Amsterdam, en route to Dubai, where two adult sons live.

Daar’s lawyer claimed that her client’s ultimate destination was Kenya, the home of her ailing mother. It came out during the hearing that Daar, a naturalized American citizen, had lived abroad for two years from 2022 to 2024.

In the end, the judge ruled to keep Daar in custody, for now.

The detention hearing turned into something of a mini trial, where the prosecution laid out some of the evidence backing up the two wire fraud counts in the indictment.

The prosecution offered several exhibits that were entered into evidence at this morning’s hearing. Exhibit 3 included a spreadsheet where the prosecution summarizes the distribution of the $1.8 million from the Northwest Wellness bank account.

The largest single item was for over $505,000, received by an entity called Premium Fresh Produce. At the last Feeding Our Future courtroom trial, it was alleged that this vendor was a sham company. Hibo Daar herself took our $111,000. Hibo’s sister, Anab, took out over $51,000.

Two individuals are listed as receiving money, totaling $82,000, who have already been convicted in the scandal (Defendant Nos. 46 and 70 and Guilty Plea Nos. 2 and 18).

A person named Shueb Mohamed is listed as receiving $162,000. As I discussed in this post, a person matching that name, along with Hibo and Anab Daar, are listed as having a nonprofit named Women Economic Development Center as a food distribution site under a different free-food sponsor.

Also in Exhibit 3, a company called Tranquility Care, listed under the name Hibo Daar and a second individual, is shown as having received $9,200. This second individual is listed as having also received another $6,875. A company called Tranquility Care LLC is listed under the name of this second individual. Over the past two years, Tranquility Care LLC is listed as receiving $1.5 million in payments as a vendor to the state Dept. of Human Services (DHS).

To repeat, no person or company mentioned above has been accused of any wrongdoing, unless specifically stated.

Hibo Daar’s next court appearance is scheduled for June 17.