Fateh returns campaign donation from latest Feeding Our Future defendant
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The campaign of Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh said Friday that he returned a campaign contribution from the latest defendant to be indicted in the Feeding Our Future case.
Earlier this month a federal grand jury charged Muna Wais Fidhin of Savage, Minn., with running two phony meal distribution sites and fraudulently claiming around $1 million in reimbursements from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs.
Fidhin, 44, was the 75th person charged since September 2022 in the sprawling case, which has led to a reckoning by state leaders about pervasive fraud in state safety net programs.
The prosecution effort has netted 49 guilty pleas and seven trial convictions for the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office. Jurors in a 2024 trial also found two defendants not guilty, but one of the men who was acquitted later pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a juror.
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On July 10, Fidhin donated the maximum-allowed $1,000 to the campaign of Fateh, a DFL state senator who’s among the candidates hoping to unseat Mayor Jacob Frey, the DFL incumbent who’s running for a third term. The contribution appears to be Fidhin’s first-ever political donation, according to state, federal, and city campaign finance records.
In an email to MPR News, Fateh campaign spokesperson Arianna Feldman says that Fateh returned the donation on Sept. 4, the same day that federal agents arrested Fidhin and a judge unsealed the indictment against her.
Feldman says that Fateh does not know Fidhin and had no knowledge of her alleged involvement in the fraud conspiracy prior to her indictment.
“We continue to condemn the fraud that occurred and look forward to focusing on building our campaign to win in November,” Feldman writes.
In early 2022 Fateh returned campaign contributions to his state senate campaign from several people who would later be charged in the Feeding Our Future case.
Also in 2022, after a half dozen donors to Frey's campaign were named in search warrants connected to the Feeding Our Future investigation, Frey returned the donations to the federal government. That year the mayor also fired campaign aide Abdi Nur Salah after the U.S. Attorney's office alleged in a filing that Salah had purchased an apartment building with fraud proceeds. Salah, who was among the first defendants indicted in the case, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in January.
As with most of the Feeding Our Future defendants, prosecutors did not request pretrial detention for Fidhin, and a judge released her on bond following her first court appearance. MPR News left a message at a phone number listed for Fidhin on Friday afternoon.
