'Early mover' in Feeding Our Future scam sentenced to 28 years
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A federal judge in Minneapolis on Wednesday sentenced a key figure in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme to 28 years in prison.
The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office calls Abdiaziz Farah “one of the early movers” in a conspiracy to fleece taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars during the pandemic.
Farah, 36, was a co-owner of Empire Cuisine and Market, a small Shakopee restaurant that operated fake meal sites under the sponsorship of the nonprofits Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care, also known as Partners in Nutrition.
In 2024, jurors convicted Farah and four of his six co-defendants of stealing more than $47 million by submitting false reimbursement claims backed by phony invoices and meal attendance rosters that included the names of fictional children with made-up names such as Rgian Pumqr, Britishy Melony, and Serious Problem.
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As the trial was winding down Farah and several of his co-defendants tried to bribe a juror, delivering a bag of cash to her home and promising more money in exchange for an acquittal vote. The plan backfired when the woman, known publicly as Juror 52, called police.
In a court filing, prosecutors said that Farah deserved three decades in prison because he “helmed the conspiracy, became the sole director of Empire Cuisine and Market, and chose how the conspiracy’s profits would be divvied up among its participants.”
At Farah’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday, lead prosecutor Joe Thompson, who has since become Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, said that Farah “stands at or near the top of this entire fraud scheme” and was one of the very first if not the first to get involved.
Thompson noted that in the spring of 2020, when much of the world was on COVID lockdown, Farah “stepped up to take advantage” instead of helping out. The prosecutor added that Farah personally pocketed more than $8 million — the most of all the six dozen defendants charged in the overall case. He also laundered the stolen money through China and bought real estate in Kenya, assets the government can’t seize and Farah hasn’t relinquished voluntarily. Thompson said that Farah “remains a wealthy man” and could still access the money in Kenya when he gets out of prison.
“Give Mr. Farah a chance to have some of his life,” said Andrew Birrell, one of Farah’s defense attorneys. Birrell added that Farah was born into poverty in Somalia and fled to a refugee camp in Kenya with his father and siblings after his mother was killed in a market bombing. Farah later joined his father in the United States and earned two bachelor’s degrees including one from the University of Minnesota, for which he received a full scholarship.
“He started at the bottom in Somalia. Now he’s at the bottom again,” Birrell said. “It’s right to punish him, but it’s not right to take away his life.”
Thompson countered that Farah took advantage of the country that offered him a new life.
“Abdiaziz Farah already won the lottery when he was allowed to come here as a refugee when he was granted citizenship in the United States. How did he repay this country and this state? By robbing us blind.”
Wearing ankle irons and an orange and white striped jail uniform, Farah stood at the courtroom lectern and said he was sorry for everything that his wife and young children have been through and “I know that I have destroyed everything that I had ever worked for.”
While Farah apologized for trying to bribe the juror, he stopped short of taking responsibility for his role in the fraud scheme.
“I completely understand that these are serious crimes that I’ve been found guilty of,” Farah said.
Pointing to text messages introduced at trial, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel said Farah never cared about feeding children during the pandemic.
“Your goal from the start was to be a multimillionaire off of the backs of taxpayers with money intended for children,” Brasel said. “I cannot find anything to support any reason for the behavior other than pure unmitigated greed.”
Farah pleaded guilty in June to jury bribery and could face additional prison time when he’s sentenced separately in that case. After prosecutors disclosed the bribery attempt in court, Farah reset his iPhone to delete text messages and other evidence when Brasel ordered the defendants to surrender their electronic devices to FBI agents.
Farah, along with most of the defendants, was indicted in late 2022 and was the fifth to be sentenced in the Feeding Our Future case. In October, Brasel sentenced Mohamed Ismail, Farah’s trial co-defendant, to 12 years in prison. In January she handed Mukhtar Shariff, who was also convicted at the 2024 trial, a 17 1/2-year term. Shariff was the only defendant to testify in his own defense.
Brasel sentenced Sahra M. Nur, who pleaded guilty in the case, to more than four years in prison and ordered her to pay $5 million in restitution. Sharon D. Ross, who enrolled her St. Paul food shelf in the food programs and also pleaded guilty, received a 3 1/2-year sentence. Brasel ordered Ross to repay $2.4 million.
Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and Safari Restaurant owner Salim Said, who were convicted at a separate trial earlier this year, are jailed and awaiting sentencing.
Latest defendant charged
Also this week, federal prosecutors charged the 73rd defendant in the case following a May FBI search of the New Vision Foundation.
Hussein Mohamed Farah, the St. Paul nonprofit’s executive director, allegedly operated two fake food distribution sites under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and collected $2.7 million throughout 2021 after claiming to have served hundreds of thousands of children.
Hussein Farah was charged by criminal information, which indicates that a plea agreement is in the works.
