One of the dozens of fraudsters convicted in the Minnesota-based Feeding Our Future scheme will serve extra time behind bars for trying to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash during his original trial.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah was sentenced to an additional ten years behind bars for the attempted bribery, MPR News reported. At the hearing, federal prosecutor Matt Murphy called the attempted bribery “an unprecedented attack on the justice system and on our democracy itself.”
At the sentencing hearing, Farah, who has been serving his other sentence in Sherburne County, addressed Judge Eric Tostrud and apologized to those who have served on his case and to juror 52.
“I completely denied her civic responsibility to be an independent, fair and impartial juror,” Farah said. “I regret it every day, and I should have never been involved in such conduct that took away the opportunity for her to proudly serve our community, our state and our country.”
Judge Tostrud remarked that it is “hard to imagine a more serious case of bribery,” and called it a “coordinated assault on our system of justice.”
Farah’s first trial was in 2024 for running a fraudulent food assistance site in the Feeding Our Future case, in which he was ultimately sentenced to 28 years in prison. During that case, he and two of his co-defendants brought a bag of $120,000 in cash to the juror’s home and promised more funds if she voted to acquit, according to the report.
The juror called law enforcement and reported the bribe, which resulted in a separate trial and Farah’s conviction this week.
“According to the indictment, Farah and the others involved singled out the youngest juror, and the only person of color on the jury, believing she would be the most likely to give in to a bribe,” per the report.
Farah also reportedly surveilled the juror to find out where she parked during the trial and had a GPS tracker attached to her car. Defendants found her personal information on social media and also watched her home before they tried to bribe her, according to the report.
“In court the day after the juror reported the bribe, the judge asked Farah and other defendants to hand over their cell phones,” according to the report. “Before doing so, Farah did a factory reset of his phone, deleting messages with the other defendants and video of them dropping off the money at the juror’s house. For that, Farah was also charged with obstruction of justice.”
Farah will be under three years of supervised release when he has finished his sentence.
The Feeding Our Future scheme has become the nation’s largest pandemic fraud case, which involved stealing nearly $250 million in pandemic-era federal funds meant to pay for a meals program for children. The case put the administration of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) in the hot seat due to rampant fraud in statewide programs under his leadership.
Nearly 80 people have been charged in connection with the case, and so far, more than 60 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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