Feeding Our Future: date certain
Federal District Judge Nancy Brasel is adamant that the next Feeding Our Future trial will begin on August 18. This trial has already been postponed twice, from April to August 11, then for another week to the 18th.
This afternoon, Judge Brasel presided over a status conference for one of the August defendants, Hamdi Hussein Omar, now aged 29, Defendant No. 12 in the case overall.
The hearing was held in the Federal Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there.
Ms. Omar is charged in the 2022 indictment with four felony counts. She is accused of creating two shell companies to further her fraud: Feeding Our Youth LLC and Omar Management Corporation.
Today’s hearing was a little awkward given that Omar has been trying for some weeks to replace her retained attorney. His request to withdraw from the case was denied last month.
Omar is trying again to hire a new attorney. Her new choice works from out of state and represented one of the defendants in the first Feeding Our Future trial held last year. He also represented a different defendant in a Feeding Our Future group scheduled for trial in 2026.
Prosecutors succeeded in having him removed from that case, over a potential conflict of interest, and have indicated that they will oppose his hiring in Omar’s case. We are likely to see another status conference for Ms. Omar held next week.
At today’s hearing, the prosecutor read into the record the formal plea deal extended to Omar back in March. She has not accepted the offer.
The prosecutor indicated that the proposed plea deal’s guidelines call for a prison sentence of 41 to 51 months (call it 3 1/2 to 4 years).
Those numbers are not binding and the ultimate decision is up to Judge Brasel. Omar would be free under the plea deal to ask for a lighter sentence, even one without any jail time.
Should she be convicted at trial on all counts, the prosecutor indicates Omar would face between 210 and 262 months in prison (17 1/2 to 21 years in prison).
In any event, there will be pre-trial conference in the case on August 1.