After covering the 2016 terrorism trial in Minneapolis, I looked back and tried to capture the experience in “A tale of five Muhammads.” The second Feeding Our Future fraud trial has turned into a tale of something like 12 Abdis. You can’t tell the Abdis without a scorecard. We have completed only six days of a trial projected to go a month or so. It will be a while before I can tote them all up.
Yesterday the government’s principal witness was Postal Inspector John Western. During Western’s testimony the Abdi of the day — Abdinasir Abshir — conspicuously appeared and took a seat in the gallery on the left side of the courtroom near the jury. According to prosecutor Joe Thompson, Abshir later found a cooperating witness who was waiting his turn to testify. Abshir sought to meet him in the bathroom down the hall from the courtroom and dissuade him from taking the stand.
Abshir and his brother are also charged in this massive fraud case. They are separately set to go on trial on April 14 but have asked for a postponement. Judge Brasel intends to follow up on the issue of witness tampering. More to come.
I have been sitting on the other side of the courtroom next to Star Tribune reporter Jeffrey Meitrodt. Meitrodt’s story is posted here. He is a perceptive reporter with a sense of the significant in the trial.
Western’s testimony proceeded methodically through claims submitted by Aimee Bock/Feeding Our Future on behalf of the nonprofit inaptly named Stigma Free International (SFI). SFI became the vehicle for defendant Said Salim and his Safari Restaurant partners to cash in on the school lunch program when for-profit entities were excluded from direct participation in “sites” providing meals.
SFI operated five sites. Western’s testimony featured two in particular, one in Mankato and one in Willmar. The sites submitted claims processed by Feeding Our Future that reflected thousands of meals a day. The Willmar site routinely submitted claims of 3,000 meals a day over an extended period of time. The meal claims generated millions of dollars in revenue.
Western described SFI’s claim with a recurring refrain: “Inflated, fraudulent, unbelievable.” Anthony Gockowski includes a copy of a form with one week’s claims in his Alpha News story here.
Defendant Salim Said has slouched impassively in his seat as the evidence implicating him has been introduced. I have wondered why he hasn’t pleaded guilty in exchange for a better sentence than the one he will get from Judge Brasel when he is convicted in this case. He may not think he did anything wrong, but he knows he is guilty. He knows the government has the goods on him. What is he thinking? My guess is that is where the Abdi of the day fits in.
There were more Abdis in yesterday’s testimony — brothers Abdi Nur Salah and Abdulkadir Nur Salah. Please see the Department of Justice press release on their January 28 guilty pleas here and Deena Winter’s Star Tribune story here.
Western’s testimony also introduced a political connection to the case. Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman established SFI as a shell nonprofit before it was turned over to others for fraudulent use in the meal lunch program. Bill Glahn has more here on the Osman angle. Osman hasn’t responded to the Star Tribune’s request for comment.
Aimee Bock is the ringleader of the massive fraud charged in the underlying indictment of some 70 defendants. This is turning out to be the key case. It’s our very own Chinatown. I had to leave yesterday just before the lunch break but will be back as much as personal circumstances permit.
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