Feeding Our Future: 56th person pleads guilty in fraud scheme

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Another man has pleaded guilty to his role in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud scheme that saw millions of dollars stolen during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Feeding Our Future plea 

The backstory:

Abdullahe Nur Jesow, 65, entered a guilty plea for money laundering in federal court on Thursday. He was the 56th defendant to plead guilty in the fraud scheme, and was scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 14, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

Jesow was one of eight people charged in connection with S&S Catering group, which reportedly stole and laundered $17.4 million in funds from the Federal Child Nutrition program.

According to the release, Jesow operated the program site Academy For Youth Excellence and served meals out of a banquet hall located above S&S Catering in Minneapolis. Between December 2020 to September 2021, the site claimed to serve more than 1.7 million meals to children in need, but only provided a fraction of that. 

Based on the inflated claims, Jesow’s co-conspirators received $4,286,088 in Federal Nutrition Program funds. Jesow allegedly received approximately 5% of that, and returned most of it to the co-conspirators via cash or checks to launder the proceeds, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

What's next:

Jesow will be sentenced at a later date.