Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio News

Prosecutors on Monday revealed more details about the attempt to bribe a juror during the first Feeding Our Future trial this summer.

Investigators say several of the seven defendants who stood trial on charges of defrauding government child nutrition programs out of $47 million during the COVID-19 pandemic conspired with two others to deliver a Hallmark gift bag with $120,000 to the home of a juror with a promise of more cash in exchange for an acquittal vote.

The seven were the first to face trial amid a sprawling investigation of the defunct nonprofit Feeding Our Future in which 70 people are alleged to have stolen $250 million. Jurors convicted five of the defendants and acquitted two others.

In a new filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson writes that defendant Mukhtar Shariff “knew about the bribery attempt” and deleted the encrypted messaging app Signal from his phone when Judge Nancy Brasel ordered the defendants to surrender their devices to the FBI as the trial was concluding.

The deleted app included texts that Shariff’s co-defendant Abdiaziz Farah sent about the bribery plot, as well as a video of the cash delivery. But Thompson writes that even though investigators could not find the complete set of messages between Farah and Shariff, FBI digital forensics experts recovered notifications of incoming messages to Shariff’s phone from Farah.

On June 2, Farah told Shariff that he was confident that Juror 52 would push for an acquittal.

“That’s it bro. I have a good feeling she will come through and that’s a lot of money for her family,” Farah allegedly wrote.

But Juror 52 did not accept the cash. Instead, she called 911 and reported the bribery attempt to police, who in turn contacted the FBI. Agents recovered the money.

Other text messages included in the filing describe a chaotic attempt on the part of the defendants and their associates to sway Juror 52.

The day before she would deliver the cash, Ladan M. Ali of Seattle falsely told Abdimajid Nur, one of the defendants, that she had approached Juror 52 at a bar and the juror had agreed to return a not guilty verdict in exchange for $500,000. But no such conversation ever took place, prosecutors have said, and the juror never agreed to accept a bribe.

Abdiaziz Farah, the lead defendant in the group, then sent a series of messages to Nur about gathering up the cash.

“Please [have] $100 [thousand] ready tomorrow by 5 p.m. at her house,” Farah allegedly wrote to Nur. “Tell her the money is coming from overseas. And it needs time or something like that bro.”

But while the defendants were plotting to bribe Juror 52, Thompson writes that “sometimes truth is stranger than fiction,” and “Ali hatched her own plan to steal the bribe money.”

In a series of messages on June 1, Ali claimed falsely that Juror 52 wanted the full $500,000.

“This girl is not playing,” Ali wrote to Nur. “Tell him [Farah] to sell a kidney babe if he has to!!! She needs it all tomorrow.”

But that scheme failed when Abdiaziz Farah recruited his younger brother, Abdulkarim S. Farah, to drive Ali to the juror’s home and record video of Ali delivering the cash.

“Abdiaziz [Farah] did not fully trust Ali, and remained concerned that Juror 52 would not follow through with an acquittal,” Thompson writes. The prosecutor also notes that Abdiaziz Farah wanted Ali to wear a hidden camera to record her conversation with Juror 52 to ensure that she’d return a not guilty verdict.

Ali and Juror 52 would never meet. When Ali and Abdulkarim Farah arrived at the juror’s home just before 9 p.m. on June 2, the juror was not home. A relative answered the door and received the gift bag.

Ali texted Nur “It’s done babe.” About 10 minutes later, Abdiaziz Farah sent Nur video of the cash delivery that Abdulkarim Farah recorded and also informed Shariff about it.

When the trial resumed on June 3, prosecutors reported the bribery attempt to Judge Nancy Brasel, who abruptly halted the proceedings partway through closing arguments. Brasel dismissed Juror 52, who was the youngest member of the panel and appeared to be the only juror of color and replaced her with an alternate. Defense attorneys resumed their closings, and jurors delivered their verdicts at the end of that week.

Later in June, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Ali, Nur, and brothers Abdiaziz Farah, Said Farah, and Abdulkarim Farah with jury bribery. Jurors acquitted Said Farah of fraud charges. Shariff, who was convicted in the underlying fraud case, is not charged with bribery.

But in a request for an “obstruction of justice enhancement,” federal prosecutors are seeking additional prison time for Shariff over the allegations that he deleted the Signal app from his phone.

In an email to MPR News, Shariff’s defense attorney Frederick Goetz writes that his client “will address the government’s contentions in due course when all of the pertinent facts are known.”

Of the five people charged in the bribery plot, two have pleaded guilty. Nur, 23, admitted in July that he recruited Ali to deliver the cash to Juror 52. Ali, 31, pleaded guilty in September.

In October, Brasel gave Mohamed J. Ismail, the first fraud trial defendant to be sentenced, a 12-year prison term. Brasel delayed sentencing hearings for Shariff, Abdiaziz Farah, and Nur as the bribery investigation continues. Hayat Nur, Abdimajid Nur’s sister, is also awaiting sentencing on the fraud charges. She has not been charged in the bribery case.