A federal judge told a Feeding Our Future defendant that he acted in “pure unmitigated greed” in stealing millions of dollars in federal funds meant to feed underprivileged children, then gave him one of the longest white collar prison sentences in Minnesota history.
“Your crime was breathtakingly elaborate,” said U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel. “The repercussions of the crime will be felt in Minnesota and in your community, the refugee community, for a long time.”
Brasel sentenced Abdiaziz Farah to 28 years in prison for his role in the Feeding Our Future fraud, the largest pandemic fraud in the country. Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said after his sentencing that the fraud’s total loss between several dozen defendants is $300 to 400 million.
The federal government has recovered about $60-$75 million to date, Thompson said, adding that the government will not be able to recover millions of dollars stored overseas.
“Abdiaziz Farah remains a wealthy man,” Thompson told the court before sentencing, stating that much of the money he stole has not been recovered by the government.
In a tearful statement to Brasel before his sentencing, Abdiaziz Farah apologized to his wife and kids, admitting that his actions “destroyed my family structure.” Abdiaziz Farah, who has been in Sherburne County Jail for the last 22 months, said he has not seen his wife or four children in person for the last year. He said he hasn’t seen his youngest in person for nearly two years because the child was born shortly before he was arrested.
“I want to tell them I am so sorry for it all,” Abdiaziz Farah said through tears. “I have destroyed everything I worked for … I’ve missed many of the milestones. I regret it every day. They don’t deserve that.”
Abdiaziz Farah’s wife broke down in tears as he spoke, surrounded by about two dozen supporters in the courtroom gallery.
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Abdiaziz Farah, 36, is the former co-owner of the Shakopee-based restaurant, Empire Cuisine & Deli. A jury convicted him last year in federal court of 23 criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, and various counts of wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering.
In delivering the sentence, Brasel emphasized that Abdiaziz Farah had achieved the American dream by immigrating to the United States as a refugee, achieving a college degree and starting his own small businesses.
“But when the pandemic started and others sought to help, you sought to get rich,” Brasel told him.
Attorneys for Abdaiziz Farah declined to comment to reporters after the hearing, other than saying they planned to appeal the sentence, which is not unusual. Abdaiziz Farah’s supporters in court also declined to comment.
Prosecutors characterized Abdiaziz Farah as the ringleader of a fraud scheme centered around Empire Cuisine, which stole roughly $42 million from the federal government. This came as part of a broader fraud scheme centered around federal programs meant to feed underprivileged children free meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abdiaziz Farah pocketed about $8 million for himself, spending much of it on several luxury cars, a custom-built lakefront mansion in Prior Lake, and an expensive vacation in the United Arab Emirates. He also sent $1 million overseas to build a 12-story luxury apartment complex in Nairobi, Kenya.
Thompson said that the $8 million Abdiaziz Farah pocketed was among the most of any of the 73 defendants charged in the case. Thompson called Abdiaziz Farah “one of the worst” of the Feeding Our Future defendants, noting that he funnelled millions of taxpayer money abroad in an attempt to start a luxury apartment business, tried to flee prosecution by committing passport fraud and tried to bribe a juror at the end of his trial.
“Abdiaziz Farah viewed us as suckers,” Thompson told the court.
Jurors also convicted him at trial last year of passport fraud for his attempt to leave the country in 2022, which was included in his sentencing Wednesday. He had applied for and received a new passport and used it to purchase a one-way ticket to Kenya in 2022 after FBI agents seized his original passport.
The incident occurred after search warrant affidavits were filed in federal court naming him as a suspect in the fraud, but before he had been indicted on any charges.
Abdiaziz Farah also pleaded guilty in June to attempting to bribe a juror in his 2024 trial in exchange for a not guilty vote. He agreed with prosecutors to a recommended prison sentence of between eight to 10 years in the bribery case. He will be sentenced in that case at a later date.
Abdiaziz Farah expresses regret
Abdiaziz Farah expressed remorse in court Wednesday for his role in bribing a juror seated in his fraud trial, saying he “panicked” while he was “dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression.”
“I destroyed my community and let down the state and judicial system that saved me from a refugee camp,” he said. “I truly regret my actions, it was the wrong thing to do.”
Brasel said she appreciated his apologies to his family and community, but noted that he only apologized for the bribery incident.
“I didn’t hear anything about the actual crime you committed that I’m sentencing you today,” she said.
Thompson, in comments to reporters after the sentencing, made similar comments.
“The sense I got was that he’s sorry he got caught,” Thompson said.
In the nearly two years he’s spent in jail, Abdiaziz Farah said he’s had moments of “self-reflection, shame and repentance.” He added that he’s enrolled in therapy and is working jobs at the jail for eight to 10 hours a day by his own choice.
Abdiaziz Farah is represented by father-son lawyers Andrew and Ian Birrell. Andrew Birrell argued at sentencing that his client’s “markedly positive personal qualities” should be considered in his prison term. Those personal qualities include the challenges he has overcome fleeing war-torn Somalia early in life, losing his mother at the age of 2, spending his childhood in a refugee camp in Kenya, and living in a small Minneapolis apartment with a family of 10 during his teenage years.
Abdaiziz Farah earned two bachelor degrees from the University of Minnesota, and was part of several business ventures, including co-founding Empire Cuisine in 2016.
“It’s not right to take away his life,” Andrew Birrell told the court in asking for a lighter sentence. “It’s right to punish him, but it’s not right to take away his life.”
Thompson argued that the U.S. government saved Abdiaziz Farah from a refugee camp, that UnitedHealth paid for full-ride college tuition, and that Abdiaziz Farah worked two taxpayer-funded government jobs after college and co-founded a publicly funded charter school.
“Abdaiziz Farah already won the lottery,” Thompson said. “And how did he repay this country and state? By robbing us blind.”
Defense attorney pushed for lower sentence
The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office pushed for a 30-year prison sentence. Abdiaziz Farah’s attorneys argued that such a sentence is “overly harsh” and “not reasonable.”
In calculating their proposed 30-year sentence, prosecutors allege that Abdiaziz Farah acted as a leader or organizer of the scheme, used sophisticated means to commit the fraud, and conducted the fraud by taking advantage of a “major disaster” — the COVID-19 pandemic. They also pinned him as responsible for the $42 million loss.
The alleged fraud involved the Minnesota Department of Education distributing federal funds to sponsor organizations like Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care. The sponsor organizations then dispersed those funds to food vendors and food sites like Empire Cuisine, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.
Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did — or simply never served any meals at all — in order to receive more federal funds, prosecutors say. Recipients allegedly spent the money on cars, property, vacations and other items.
Defense attorney Ian Birrell countered the prosecution’s arguments, calling the 10-year prison sentence request “not reasonable” and noting that other defendants convicted for high-dollar fraud have received lower prison sentences.
“It would sentence Mr. Farah, a first-time, non-violent fraud offender, more harshly than some of the worst offenders the State and nation have ever seen,” Ian Birrell wrote in a memorandum filed before Wednesday’s sentencing hearing.
Birrell objected to the prosecution’s assertion that his client is responsible for a $42 million loss. He said the government has acknowledged that some of the money Abdaiziz Farah stole from the government did pay for meals for children, and argued that that should be factored into the sentence.
Birrell argued in his filing that the government should subtract that from the $42 million to calculate a more accurate net loss.
Birrell, however, did not request a specific alternative prison term for Abdiaziz Farah. Brasel took note of this during the sentencing hearing.
“I understand your point, but I’m not sure what would change because there’s no specificity,” she told Birrell.
Brasel noted that the government calculated that Abdiaziz and his co-conspirators spent $5 million on food, and that much of this was food for Empire Cuisine and not for children. Subtracting $5 million from the overall total would not change the sentencing guidelines, she said.
Ian Birrell’s filing also cited the sentences for notorious fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of Theranos, which developed a blood testing device that falsely claimed to be revolutionary.
Bankman-Fried “led an $11 billion fraud—hundreds of times greater than the issue here,” Birrell wrote, and ultimately received a 25-year prison sentence.
Ian Birrell argued that Holmes raised $700 million in investments by making fraudulent promises, and was ultimately sentenced to just over 11 years in prison. Her business partner, Sonny Balwani, ended up with 14 years in prison.
“Mr. Farah is not a Bankman-Fried, a Holmes, a Balwani or a murderer,” Ian Birrell wrote. “His culpability is simply not comparable to people like these, nor to other pertinent defendants in prior cases.
Brasel ultimately rejected the argument, saying that the Bankman-Fried and Holmes cases were different because they did not involve defrauding government money meant to feed children during a state of emergency.
Other white collar crime sentences in Minnesota
Only one white collar defendant in Minnesota was sentenced to a longer prison term than Abdiaziz Farah.
Tom Petters, the former investor convicted in the late 2000s of operating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He’s scheduled to remain in custody until 2052, when he’ll be 94.
In 1995, U.S. District Judge David Doty sentenced California lawyer Gary Lefkowitz in Minnesota to 24 years in prison for defrauding low-incoming housing investors of $80 million.
Doty, who is 95 and still on the bench, will sentence Abdiaziz Farah for the jury bribery guilty plea at a later date.
