Feeding Our Future: snow delays trial and a 37th guilty plea?

The snowstorm appears to have wiped out today’s sitting of the Feeding Our Future trial against Aimee Bock and Salim Said, Defendant Nos. 1 and 3, respectively. To make up for the delay, additional trial days have been added to the official federal court calendar, out as far as March 14.

Along with the additional trial days, a new item has been added to the calendar for Friday, March 7. It’s a change of plea hearing in the case, under the name Abshir.

There are two Abshirs, brothers, named in the case: Abdinasir and Asad Abshir (Defendant Nos. 10 and 11), both in their early 30’s.

Court records indicate that it’s the younger brother, Abdinasir, who will plead guilty on Friday. You will recall that Abdinasir was recently jailed on suspicions of witness tampering in the case, arising out of an incident outside the Bock/Said trial last month.

Should the plea get entered on Friday, Abdinasir will become the 37th defendant to plead guilty and the 42nd conviction in the case overall. He is currently scheduled to go on trial with four co-defendants in August.

It looks like the weather today wiped another guilty plea hearing, this one involving the related juror bribery case. Another defendant in the bribery case, Ladan Ali, is scheduled for a bond revocation hearing tomorrow afternoon in St. Paul on her recent DWI arrest.

Despite today’s snow day, the ongoing trial continues to generate headlines. Here are a few:

PowerLine: Feeding Our Fraud: “I know how to make money”

Sahan Journal: Aimee Bock allegedly received $310K kickback in Feeding Our Future fraud

MPR News: ‘We may have become the mob’: Feeding Our Future leader’s texts revealed in trial