Feeding Our Future: 48th conviction

Asad Mohamed Abshir became the 48th defendant convicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal late this Monday afternoon at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there.

Abshir, now aged 34, was defendant No. 11 (of 72, overall) in the sprawling free-food case, and today he entered guilty plea No. 41.

Sentencing guidelines call for Abshir to spend a term in prison of between 18 and 24, months. He is considered a minor player in the scandal, as they score such things.

He’s on the hook for $750,000 in forfeiture, his estimated take from the case. To that end, he is specifically forfeiting a bank account containing $425,000 and a GMC truck.

He admitted to running a fake food distribution site in Mankato with his brother under the auspices of the fake nonprofit Stigma-Free International.

His younger brother Abdinasir Abshir had previously pled guilty (#10/37/42). The two brothers were linked to that alleged witness tampering issue that arose during the most recent courtroom Feeding Our Future trial earlier this year.

Speaking of trials, Asad was supposed to have gone on trial next month. We are rapidly running out of defendants available for that August 18 court date, now just four weeks away.

In fact, we may now be down to just one, Hamdi Omar (No. 12), who stands accused of running Stigma-Free’s Waite Park site.

She was scheduled for a status conference earlier this afternoon, to sort out her legal representation issues, ahead of the pre-trial hearing scheduled for August 1.

On Thursday, July 24, Mahad Ibrahim (No. 12) is scheduled to become guilty plea No. 42 and conviction No. 49.