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Feeding Our Future: More plea deals ahead of trial
More plea deals are coming in for the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme ahead of a scheduled trial in April. FOX 9's Rob Olson has more.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Gandi Yusef Mohamed stood in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis Wednesday morning to tell a judge he was rejecting a plea deal.
The offer expired right when his hearing began.
Gandi Mohamed is one of nearly 80 people charged in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud case, which prosecutors say took $250 million in federal funds by claiming to serve meals to children during the pandemic.
Mohamed is part of a group of seven people charged together two years ago, connected both by allegations and by family.
The other six took plea deals, or plan to, leaving him to head to trial by himself.
Years-long prosecution
The backstory:
The first criminal charges against 47 people in the Feeding Our Future case came in September 2022. Since then, the number has risen to nearly 80.
Nine people, including founder Aimee Bock, have been convicted at trial. Around 60 more have pleaded guilty, taking the offers from federal prosecutors that saw some charges dropped.
Family affair
What we know:
Gandi Mohamed declined a plea deal that would have let him plead guilty to one count of wire fraud.
He’s one of seven people charged as a group two years ago, together facing 36 federal counts related to money laundering and wire fraud. And they’re mostly connected as family.
Ikram Mohamed, Gandi’s sister, took the plea deal on Wednesday, admitting guilty to one count of wire fraud.
So did Ikram’s husband, Shakur Abdisalam.
Prosecutors say Ikram is the one who opened meal sites, sponsored by Feeding Our Future, and put them in the names of family members to conceal her involvement. But they are all accused of taking part of the fraud scheme.
In court, Ikram and her husband admitted to filing false meal counts and creating fake invoices for food purchases, amounting to millions of dollars in fraudulent reimbursements.
On Friday, another brother, a sister and her mother are all set to enter guilty pleas as well, along with another woman who appears unrelated.
Before Gandi Mohamed entered a not guilty plea, the federal judge overseeing the case reminded him that he’d be the only one of six to continue to trial. He said he understood.
The judge finished his hearing by saying, "see you in April."