Juror In Fraud Trial Mysteriously Blessed With Hallmark Bag Containing $120,000
And promised more if she'd vote to acquit.
One of the biggest cases of pandemic-related fraud just got fraudier. Almost!
A Minnesota juror reported that a woman dropped off a bag with $120,000 in it, with the promise of more if she voted to acquit seven defendants accused of defrauding the government out of tens of millions of dollars.
Rather than the traditional sack with a dollar sign drawn on it, the attempted briber brought the money in a “Hallmark gift bag emblazoned with butterflies and flowers,” for that extra touch of class.
“The woman told the relative to tell Juror #52 to say not guilty tomorrow and there would be more of that present tomorrow,” according to an affidavit earlier this week from US Assistant Attorney Joe Thompson. “After the woman left, the relative looked in the gift bag and saw it contained a substantial amount of cash.”
The 23-year-old was serving on the jury in the trial of seven defendants accused of stealing more than $40 million in tax dollars meant to combat child hunger and spending it on houses, cars, jewelry and more for themselves. The seven defendants are actually the first of 70 participants in the alleged fraud ring going to trial, while 18 others have already pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Altogether, they stand accused of having defrauded the government — and hungry children — of $250 million.
The woman who showed up at the juror’s house appeared to be Somali, which was significant given that the seven defendants on trial here are East African immigrants. The juror herself was the only person of color serving on the jury, as well as the youngest.
Following the attempted bribe, US District Judge Nancy Brasel immediately dismissed the juror, ordered the defendants detained, and confiscated the phones of the rest of the 17 jurors and alternates to make sure that none of them had been the recipient of any festive gift bags in recent days. She also ordered them to be sequestered until the end of deliberations.
A search warrant issued for the defendants’ phones following Monday’s closing arguments revealed that all seven of them had been aware of the juror’s personal information, at which point Judge Brasel ordered their arrest.
“The fact that there are only seven defendants and only seven people other than their attorneys that have the information to get to a juror and bribe the juror doesn’t relieve me with the responsibility to protect the community,” she wrote.
Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition/Partners in Quality Care, the primary two non-profits implicated in the scheme, (though no one at Partners in Nutrition has actually been charged with anything yet) received hundreds of millions of dollars to help distribute meals during the pandemic to children from low-income families who would have normally been fed at school. Federal dollars from the United States Department of Agriculture were distributed by the Minnesota Department of Education to sponsors like these, who then distributed the funds to restaurants and other food vendors who were meant to provide ready-to-eat meals and groceries to these children at various sites around the state.
However, the Justice Department alleged that almost none of this money actually went to feed children and instead went to enrich those associated with the non-profits, who then provided kickbacks to the vendors who helped them pull the scheme off.
Aimee Bock, the founder and former director of Feed Our Future and the alleged ringleader of the scheme, has been charged with bribery, wire fraud, money laundering and various conspiracy charges but will be tried separately.
Those tried in this first case are a group of East African immigrants connected through one of those vendors, Empire Cuisine and Market, a deli and grocery store opened by two of them, Abdiaziz Farah and Mohamed Jama Ismail, at the beginning of the pandemic. Prosecutors argued that the seven of them conspired to produce fake invoices to make it look like they were using the money to feed children, but instead funneled the money into shell corporations and spent it on themselves, buying houses, cars, jewelry and other luxuries, along with kickbacks for Feeding Our Future employees. Among the more damning pieces of evidence shared were the defendants claiming to have distributed 7,000 meals in a day (and charged the government for as much) when there were only 4,000 children in the district; the same names (and some very fake-sounding names, like Jeffrey Dharmer, John Doe, Britishy Melony, Serious Problem, and Getsaname Hester) showing up on the records over and over again for various sites in the area; and text messages between the defendants about how they were excited to be millionaires.
Defense attorneys argued that the defendants were actually feeding children and that the FBI’s investigation was flawed. They also argued that the case against these particular defendants was not all that clear and relied primarily on bad record-keeping, some of which (like the names of those who received the meals or how many meals they received from various distributor sites in a day) they had no control over. They also argued that these people were immigrants participating in a program that was new to them and were supposed to have been overseen by other people who knew more about what they were doing.
The defense produced video evidence of meals being distributed to children, but prosecutors argued that this did not prove that they distributed all the meals they claimed were distributed.
However, the defense argued that the fact that the government loosened up regulations during the pandemic to allow vendors to provide families with bulk foods and groceries regardless of whether or not they qualified for any assistance programs is what accounted for the large number of meals they provided. This is a good example, frankly, of why regulations are our friends.
They also pointed out that the defendants had been primarily sponsored by Partners in Quality Care rather than Feeding Our Future, but that no one at that organization, including its head, Kara Lomen (who featured prominently in the text messages produced by the prosecution), had been charged with anything.
The prosecution and defense were at odds over whether or not those participating in the program were meant to make money at all. Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson argued that they were not and that this was a program meant to help children, “not a get rich quick scheme,” while the defense teams argued that they were taking on risk, often by providing the meals before getting the money, and therefore should have reasonably expected to turn a profit.
They’re not entirely without a chance for reasonable doubt for at least some of the 41 counts the group is collectively charged with, so whoever decided to send that woman in with the Hallmark bag clearly did not do anyone any favors.
PREVIOUSLY:
"A Minnesota juror reported that a woman dropped off a bag with $120,000 in it, with the promise of more if she voted to acquit seven defendants accused of defrauding the government out of tens of millions of dollars."
This juror COULD HAVE just kept the money and kept quiet. But she chose to do the right thing.
We owe a great debt to upstanding citizens like this.
And we owe it to them to THROW THE BOOK at the fraudsters.
For defrauding a system meant to help vulnerable people, these crooks should be held accountable.
Now let's also do this to every corporation that defrauds Medicaid/Medicare.