This year saw the long-awaited first trial in the biggest COVID-19 fraud in the country, when some defendants in the Feeding Our Future case finally saw their day in court.
But what grabbed the most attention came at the end of the trial, when some of the defendants attempted to bribe a juror in exchange for acquittals for all seven defendants on trial.
The trial wasn’t the only news in 2024 related to the sprawling fraud investigation. Earlier in the year, Sahan Journal wrote about how an immigrant family became a casualty in a Feeding Our Future defendant’s real estate speculations.
Similarly, we reported about how a proposed East African-focused suburban development called Nolosha ended up under federal and state investigation. Nolosha developers are attempting to buy land federal prosecutors believe was originally purchased by others with stolen money from the Feeding Our Future case.
The year also saw significant reforms on the state and national level on contracts for deed, an alternative home purchasing process, as a result of Sahan Journal and ProPublica’s joint investigation into the issue in 2022.
Late in the year, we broke news about several low-income Somali mothers who say they were duped into paying thousands of dollars for sub-par tutoring for their children.
Here’s more on the top five local news stories of 2024.
1. First Feeding Our Future trial
Two years after the Feeding Our Future scandal became public in 2022, the first trial in the case finally commenced in April. The trial centered on seven defendants with ties to a Shakopee restaurant used to steal and launder tens of millions of federal dollars. It lasted six weeks and involved thousands of pages of documents and countless hours of witness testimony.
The evening before jury deliberations were set to begin, a woman mysteriously dropped off a bag with $120,000 in cash at a juror’s home, telling her father-in-law that she would receive more money if she voted not guilty during deliberations. The juror, who prosecutors say was targeted because she was the only person of color on the jury, immediately called police once she arrived home and learned what had happened.
The following morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson disclosed the bribery attempt to the judge, shocking attendees in the courtroom.
“This is outrageous behavior,” he said. “This is the stuff that happens in mob movies.”
Attempts to bribe jurors are rare; the last time it happened in Minnesota was more than a half-century ago in the trial of Kid Cann, the most notorious gangster in the state’s history.
Authorities immediately arrested all seven Feeding Our Future defendants and confiscated their phones. They believed that some of the defendants devised the bribery plan. Three of the seven defendants, along with two additional people, were subsequently charged with juror bribery crimes. Two of them have since pleaded guilty. Prosecutors later released text messages showing the defendants discussing the bribe.
“100 for our freedom is nothing bro,” one text says regarding the bribe amount. “Worth trying everything bro.”
Ultimately, jurors in the underlying Feeding Our Future trial deliberated and convicted five defendants in the case and acquitted two others.
The federal government has charged a total of 70 people in the Feeding Our Future case. On top of the five who were convicted at trial this year, 23 others have pleaded guilty.
Next year promises to be another big year for the Feeding Our Future case, as six different trials, all with multiple defendants, are scheduled to take place.
2. Immigrant family becomes a casualty in a Feeding Our Future suspect’s real estate ventures
As Sahan Journal has reported on Feeding Our Future the last three years, we’ve discovered many ways some defendants reportedly invested their fraud proceeds. Haji Osman Salad was one defendant among many who allegedly turned his money into real estate proceeds.
Osman bought and flipped a house in Blaine, which ultimately was sold to Deming Lai and Xiaoling Chen for $290,000 — nearly $30,000 more than what Haji had paid for it.
The Chinese immigrant couple bought the home from Haji using a contract for deed, an alternative homebuying method where the purchaser can buy the home directly from the seller without using a bank. It ended up being a raw deal for Lai, who fell behind on his monthly mortgage payments as he dealt with slow months at work as a masseuse at the Northtown Mall.
In late 2023, Lai’s bank even moved to foreclose on him. He ultimately avoided being kicked out of his home by borrowing money to pay for his missed payments. He has unsuccessfully sought to recover his overpayment back from Haji.
Haji, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud last fall and admitted to stealing $19 million from the federal government and pocketing $11.3 million for himself.
3. Nolosha Development falls under state and federal scrutiny
A planned suburban community geared toward East African immigrants made headlines throughout 2024 as authorities investigated and eventually filed charges against its developers.
Nolosha Development aims to build 160 housing units, a mosque, a school, restaurants and more on a 37-acre parcel of land in Lakeville. Despite taking $25,000 pre-reservation payments from prospective homebuyers for the past two years, Nolosha does not own the land it intends to develop. The development also doesn’t have any construction permits in place with Lakeville.
One of the reasons Nolosha doesn’t own the land is because it’s been tied up by the federal government. The parcel’s current owner bought it with money that was allegedly obtained fraudulently in the Feeding Our Future case. Among the people who financed the purchase of the land is defendant Haji Salad, the same person who was involved in the story listed above.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into the matter in the fall of 2023, and filed a lawsuit in October 2024 charging Nolosha with consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising.
Additionally, Sahan Journal confirmed that the FBI is also investigating Nolosha.
4. State and federal reforms of contract for deed purchases
In fall of 2022, Sahan Journal teamed up with Propublica to report on a rising market for contract-for-deed sales targeting the Somali community. We profiled Abdinoor Igal, who purchased a newly built, five-bedroom Lakeville home in 2022 for more than $727,000 for himself, his wife and their six children.
It wasn’t long before Abdinoor, a trucker, couldn’t afford the $4,000-plus monthly payments on his home. He walked away from his home last fall, losing an estimated $170,000.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office eventually opened an investigation into contracts for deed, which are often used by homebuyers who don’t qualify for a conventional home mortgage and by Muslim buyers who abstain from home loans due to religious beliefs. In 2024, the office filed a lawsuit against Chadwick Banken, the state’s top contract-for-deed seller, charging him with religious discrimination and violating federal Truth In Lending Act requirements.
Additionally, the state Legislature passed a bill tightening consumer protections on contract-for-deed purchases while nationally, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released new guidelines on such sales.
5. Several Somali mothers say they were duped into paying thousands for sub-par tutoring
In the fall, Sahan Journal spoke with 18 Somali mothers who each gave a similar story: During the COVID-19 pandemic, people from their community approached them with promises of free tutoring for their school-age children. Their kids enrolled and found the tutoring unhelpful.
Then, the mothers unexpectedly found out months later that thousands of dollars were automatically deducted from their state tax returns to pay for the tutoring.
The women found themselves mired in a confusing situation involving a state tax credit, local nonprofits, private tutoring companies and complex tax processes.
At the end of the day, however, they just want their money back. All of the women are low income and rely on their tax rebates.
“That’s my only means of savings, raising a child by myself,” said Fatihiya Farah, who said she lost more than $2,000 to tutoring. “It makes it worse that my kid didn’t learn anything.”
To date, none of the women have received a refund.
