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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is on the government’s lengthy 

 of potential witnesses in the second trial over allegations that 70 people fleeced taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs out of $250 million during the pandemic.

The DFL mayor is not accused of any wrongdoing. But Abdi Nur Salah, a former policy aide to Frey who 

 in 2022, is charged with taking part in the alleged conspiracy. Frey spokesperson Aaron Rose said the city fired Salah after his name appeared in a court filing related to the investigation.

Salah faces trial beginning Feb. 3 along with his brother Abdulkadir Nur Salah, Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and Salim Ahmed Said. 

In a filing this week, prosecutors indicated that they may call Frey to testify about the city’s policy on outside employment. They contend that Salah failed to tell his city employers about outside income from the fraud, which he allegedly disguised as consulting payments. 

In a separate filing, Salah’s attorney 

 that such evidence is inadmissible and could mislead the jury.  

FBI recovers deleted texts showing chaos of bribe attempt in Feeding our Future trial

Feeding Our Future defendant pleads guilty, admits to diverting millions to co-conspirators

Rose told MPR News on Wednesday that the mayor has not received a subpoena to testify.

In a brief outlining their case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that when officials at the Minnesota Department of Education began scrutinizing Feeding Our Future, “Abdi Nur Salah used his political influence to lobby politicians to pressure MDE not to shut down Feeding Our Future and sites under its sponsorship.”

The government’s witness list includes more than 175 names in addition to Frey’s. Most are investigators with the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and IRS. Throughout the five weeks of testimony in the first Feeding Our Future trial in May, prosecutors called 33 witnesses and defense attorneys called 10. Jurors 

 five defendants and acquitted two others after a trial that ended with an 

The government witness list for the second trial also names a dozen defendants in the sprawling case who pleaded guilty, including 

. Issa resigned as chair of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority board after the investigation became public in early 2022. 

Prosecutors may also call Hadith Ahmed back to the witness stand. Ahmed 

 at the first trial that he was Bock’s “right hand man” at Feeding Our Future and said that he helped set up fake meal distribution sites and submit phony reimbursement requests for meals that were never served to children. 

Defense attorneys filed their witness lists on Wednesday, but the documents are not public.

In their trial brief, prosecutors contend that Bock and Feeding Our Future recruited people to open more than 200 meal sites across Minnesota that “fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed and despite having few, if any, staff and little to no experience serving this volume of meals.”

The government alleges that the four defendants who are facing trial in February misappropriated more than $45 million from the Summer Food Service Program and Child and Adult Care Food Program, which are operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and managed on the state level by MDE. 

Prosecutors allege that Said and Abdulkadir Salah, former co-owners of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, falsely claimed to have served more than 3.9 million meals to children at their Lake Street restaurant between April 2020 and November 2021 and pocketed more than $16 million in public money.

The government contends that the defendants spent the stolen money freely, and the Salah brothers used some of it to purchase the former site of a bar and restaurant in Brooklyn Park. 

Bock is accused of funneling as much as $10,000 per week to a company created by her boyfriend Empress Watson, which the two allegedly used for travel, exotic car rentals in Las Vegas, and “tens of thousands of dollars in luxury retail and jewelry spending.”

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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is on the government’s witness list in the second Feeding Our Future trial. He is not accused of any wrongdoing and a spokesperson said Frey has not received a subpoena to testify.

Frey listed among 175 potential government witnesses in next Feeding Our Future trial

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