A third defendant pleaded guilty to bribing a juror in last year’s Feeding Our Future trial.
Abdulkarim Farah pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to one count of bribing a juror for helping someone deliver $120,000 in cash to a juror in exchange for not guilty verdicts. He said he was working at the direction of his two older brothers — Abdiaziz Farah and Said Farah — and Abdimajid Nur, who were jointly tried last year with four other co-defendants in the broader Feeding Our Future fraud investigation.
Abdulkarim Farah, 24, is not charged in the fraud case.
Abdulkarim Farah and federal prosecutors agreed to a recommended sentence of between just under four years to about five years in prison.
Abdulkarim Farah admitted that he drove Ladan Ali to the juror’s home and video recorded her giving the juror’s relative a bag of cash. The juror was not home at the time, but called 911 immediately upon learning about the bribe.
He then admitted to sending the video to his brother, Abdiaziz Farah, who was the lead defendant in last year’s trial.
Abdulkarim Farah, who has been detained in the Sherburne County jail since being charged last June, was dressed in an orange jumpsuit as he responded yes matter-of-factly to several questions by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson and U.S. District Judge David Doty.
“Do you think that you are guilty?” Doty asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Abdulkarim Farah responded.
“How do you plead?” Doty asked.
“Guilty, your honor,” Abdulkarim Farah responded.
The bribery attempt rocked the end of the seven-week fraud trial last year, leading to the arrest of all seven defendants who were on trial. The jury, which was about to begin deliberations, was also sequestered.
Jurors eventually convicted five defendants in the trial, including Abdiaziz Farah and Abdimajid Nur, and acquitted two others, including Said Farah.
A few weeks after the fraud trial ended, federal prosecutors charged five defendants in the juror bribery case: three defendants from the trial — Abdiaziz Farah, Said Farah and Abdimajid Nur — and two people who were not part of the trial — Abdulkarim Farah and Ladan Ali.
Ladan Ali and Abdimajid Nur previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the bribery case. Abdiaziz Farah and Said Farah — Abdulkarim Farah’s older brothers — have pleaded not guilty in the case.
Abdiaziz Farah is the former co-owner of Empire Cuisine & Market, a Shakopee deli that was the center of the fraud charges in the 2024 Feeding Our Future trial. Said Farah ran a warehouse that purported to supply food to Empire Cuisine.
According to charges filed in the juror bribery case: As the fraud trial was winding to an end, Abdiaziz Farah, Said Farah and Abdimajid Nur allegedly conspired to bribe the only person of color on the jury. They began researching her, tracking her social media posts and recruiting Ladan Ali and Abdulkarim Farah to follow her home after court to find out where she lived.
Abdulkarim Farah played a key role in the research, he admitted in court Wednesday, by surveilling the juror’s home and telling his brother where she parked her car when she attended court for the trial.
Said Farah allegedly supplied $200,000 in cash for the bribe. The original plan was for Ladan Ali to drop the money off at the juror’s house by herself, but Abdiaziz Farah and Said Farah grew suspicious of her, according to federal prosecutors.
Ladan Ali later admitted in court that she originally planned to take all of the money, but ended up secretly skimming $80,000 for herself before delivering $120,000 to the juror’s home.
Abdimajid Nur asked Abdulkarim Farah to accompany Ladan Ali to the juror’s home to ensure that she dropped the money off, according to Abdulkarim Farah’s plea deal. Abdulkarim Farah and Ladan Ali stopped at Target to purchase a screwdriver, which Abdulkarim Farah used to remove license plates from their car to avoid detection.
All three defendants who’ve pleaded in the jury bribery case are currently awaiting sentencing.
The broader Feeding Our Future case involved at least 70 defendants allegedly defrauding the federal government of $250 million in money meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minnesota Department of Education disbursed federal funds to Feeding Our Future, which then distributed that money to food vendors and food sites that were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.
Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did, or never served any at all, in order to receive more federal reimbursement dollars, according to prosecutors.
