Text messages flew furiously as the bribe was delivered. The defendants in the Feeding Our Future trial knew what was at stake. “100 [thousand] for our freedom is nothing bro,” Abdiaziz Farah sent to his co-defendant Mukhtar Shariff, “worth trying everything bro.
” The attempted bribery was in response to the sprawling FBI investigation into the Minnesota non-profit that alleged more than $250 million in federal reimbursements were stolen and spent on luxury homes, cars and other lavish expenses , in what was one of the largest pandemic-era fraud cases in the United States. The United States Attorney’s Office detailed dozens of messages between several co-defendants on Monday as it filed a motion to supplement the presentence investigation report for Shariff. Shariff was convicted for his role in the fraud scandal, but has not been charged with bribing the juror.
“The government has learned that defendant Shariff knew about the bribery attempt and destroyed communications he had with his co-defendant Abdiaziz Farah about the bribe,” the motion reads. As the seven-week trial was coming to a close, several of the defendants targeted a 23-year-old known as Juror 52 to deliver a bribe to try and secure a not guilty verdict. The Attorney’s Office said it was because they believed “she was the youngest juror and the only juror of color.
” One of the defendants, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, reached out to Ladan Mohamed Ali, a 31-year-old Seattle woman who prosecutors say.