Feeding Our Future: the pregnant pause
We are in waiting mode as the jury deliberates in the 2nd Feeding Our Future trial. The jury began deliberations this morning in the case against Aimee Bock, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, and Salim Said, co-owner of Safari Restaurant, Bock’s biggest food vendor.
Bock and Salim are defendants Nos. 1 and 3, overall respectively, in the sprawling free-food scandal. But the larger case still has dozens of other defendants yet to be processed.
Two of these other defendants were in court this morning and your correspondent was there.
Both were scheduled to go on trial beginning April 14. The defendants, Abdihakim Ahmed (No. 7) and Hamdi Omar (No. 12), were part of a five-member group with the April trial start date. Abdikadir Mohamud, No. 9, pled guilty last month. The other two April defendants, Abdinasir Abshir (No. 10) and Asad Abshir (No. 11), were allowed to fall back to an August trial group. Abdinasir Abshir (No. 10) has already pled guilty.
Everyone mentioned above is part of the Safari Restaurant group of defendants.
To keep all of the Safari defendants straight, prosecutors developed a handy 175-page PowerPoint presentation (viewable here) that included this diagram below:
Safari co-owner Salim Said (No. 3) sits at the top. Second from the left, on the bottom, sits Abdihakim Ahmed (No. 7, April trail). Fourth from the left sits Abdikadir Mohamud (No. 9, guilty plea). Fifth from the left sits Abdinasir Abshir (No. 10, guilty plea). This Abshir was involved in that alleged witness tampering incident. Abshir’s brother, Asad (No. 11), is on the far right and is still scheduled for an August trial.
Not pictured above is Hamdi Omar (No. 12, April trial). She is associated with a food distribution site located in Waite Park. Hamdi is not mentioned in the 175-page PowerPoint. However, her name did come up in the current trial in connection with the Waite Park site.
In the indictment in the case, her role is discussed beginning on page 19, paragraphs 61 through 64. Discussion of her role continues on page 30, paragraphs 129 through 136.
A little over three weeks before the scheduled start of her trial, Hamdi appeared in court this morning, 38 weeks pregnant. She is expected to give birth prior to the start of the trial next month.
Obviously, given the nature of such things, this complication has been known to Hamdi and her lawyer for some time, but only last week did Hamdi formally request a postponement of her trial. She requested an indefinite postponement, or in the alternative, to be included with the August group of defendants.
For his part, Mr. Ahmed was present in court, but he took no position on the matter. After some back-and-forth among the opposing sides, the judge granted a one-week postponement until April 21.
I’m just speculating here, but perhaps the one-week delay is designed to give parties a chance to reconsider plea bargain negotiations and/or an alternative to abandoning the April trial window.
Another complication regarding the April trial window involves Mahad Ibrahim, Defendant No. 17. Ibrahim founded the Thinktechact Foundation. He was to have gone on trial last year with his seven Empire Cuisine co-defendants, but his lawyer was unavailable and his trial was postponed.
His rescheduled trial was to have taken place beginning April 14 in parallel with the trial of Ahmed and Omar. Mr. Ibrahim was not in court today for the 20-minute hearing and his name never came up. According to court records, the last activity in his file occurred earlier this month when he filed an unknown document under seal.
Meanwhile, we wait…