Five people were charged on Wednesday for allegedly trying to bribe a Minnesota juror in one of the nation’s largest COVID-19-related fraud cases — by dumping a “present” of $120,000 at her doorstep.
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali, allegedly teamed up to bribe one of the jurors hearing the $250 million fraud trial against three of them.
Minnesota US Attorney Andrew Luger described the bribery plot as “something out of a mob movie,” where the five people allegedly tracked down the juror and left $120,000 at her house inside a Hallmark gift bag, with a promise of more to come if she voted to acquit.
Abdiaziz, Said and Nur were among seven defendants, all of whom are of East African descent, who were tried for stealing more than $250 million from a COVID-19 relief program that was supposed to feed children during the pandemic.
Investigators alleged that during the trial, Abdulkarim and Ali joined the three defendants to track down the Minneapolis home of “Juror #52” on the night before the fraud case was sent to the jury in early June.
Ali, who flew in from Seattle, was allegedly recruited by Nur and sent to the house to present the bribe, but she was met with a relative instead.
“The woman told the relative to tell Juror #52 to say not guilty tomorrow and there would be more of that present tomorrow,” an FBI agent said in an affidavit.
“After the woman left, the relative looked in the gift bag and saw it contained a substantial amount of cash,” the agent added.
Once the juror learned of the bribe, she called the police, with investigators discovering that the defendants specifically targeted her because she was the youngest juror and they believed her to be the only person of color overseeing the case.
The five suspects allegedly surveilled the juror, tracked her daily habits, and purchased a GPS tracking device to install in her car.
The defendants also allegedly created a “blueprint” for the juror to follow to try and convince her fellow jurors to vote not guilty, with the arguments claiming that prosecutors had a racial bias against them.
“(W)e are immigrants, they don’t respect us,” the list of proposed arguments read.
Luger called the whole scheme a “chilling attack on our justice system.”
Abdiaziz and Nur were among the five convicted in the fraud trial earlier this month, with Said was acquitted.
The three, along with Abdulkarim and Ali have now been charged with one count of conspiracy to bribe a juror, one count of bribery of a juror and one count of corruptly influencing a juror, according to the indictment.
Abdiaziz has been additionally charged with one count of obstruction of justice.
Seventy people have been charged in federal court for their alleged roles in the $250 million fraud trial, of which $200 million remains missing.
The defendants’ fraud scheme was perpetrated under the guise of Minneapolis nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which received millions in food aid from the US Department of Agriculture under relaxed pandemic-era rules to help quickly shuttle food to the needy.
In addition to the five convicted in June, 18 other defendants have already pleaded guilty, with the trials still pending for the others.
With Post wires
