A defendant in the Feeding Our Future trial testified Thursday that he distributed food to thousands of children in Bloomington but was not responsible for the financial paperwork that resulted in millions of dollars in federal reimbursements.
Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, 33, of Burnsville, was the only one of the seven defendants in the joint trial to take the stand to testify and the only one to call witnesses in his defense. The six others dropped their cases without any testimony.
Shariff’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, asked Shariff if he was involved in the dozens of invoices, child attendance schedules, reimbursement claims or meal count forms that the Bloomington company of which he was CEO submitted to the federal child nutrition programs — forms of which prosecutors allege they inflated or fabricated them to raise money.
“No, that was not my role,” Shariff said Thursday, the second day of his testimony, adding that some of the documents he forwarded to Feeding Our Future, the St. Anthony nonprofit at the center of the United Nations, hadn’t even read through. the case. But he added: “I had no reason to believe there was a problem.”
Thursday was the last day of testimony in the high-profile six-week trial. Attorneys will make their closing arguments Friday and Monday before the jury begins deliberating.
The trial is the first in a broader FBI investigation that has led to charges against 70 people accused of stealing money intended to fund meals for children in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prosecutors say it’s one of the largest pandemic fraud cases in the U.S., stealing more than $250 million from U.S. Department of Agriculture reimbursements to schools, daycares and nonprofits for feeding low-income children after school time and during the summer.
Prosecutors allege the defendants set up shell companies to launder money disguised as consulting fees, submitted rosters of made-up children’s names and inflated meal claims to receive more than $40 million for 18 million meals at food locations across the state.
Shariff testified for about five hours as his mother, wife and other family members watched. The married father of two was asked by Goetz about the businesses he built before the pandemic. Were they shell companies, Goetz asked.
“Absolutely not,” Shariff said.
He said he was born in Somalia, immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was five years old and grew up on the East Coast. He later moved to Seattle and worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and then for a technology consulting firm. In his spare time, he said, he runs his own consulting firm to help small businesses and the Somali embassy with digital marketing. When his job went remote in 2020, he and his family moved to Minnesota.
At a mosque in Bloomington, Shariff met with Mahad Ibrahim, who was charged in the same indictment. Ibrahim and other leaders wanted to start a cultural center called Afrique, and they chose Shariff as CEO, he said.
They have secured about $700,000 in private investment to finance the project, he said. One of those investors, Sulekha Hassan, testified Thursday — the last of nine witnesses Shariff’s defense team called — that she had invested $460,000. Through an interpreter, she said she had immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 and saved money by working two jobs to buy several businesses. She testified that she was not aware that federal funding was going to the project and that she has not yet received any of the money back from the defunct company.
On cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Walcker asked Hassan if he had repaid a $250,000 loan made by someone else, who used federal money and was charged in the broader case. She said she didn’t know where the person got his money.
Shariff testified that he had only lived in Minnesota for about a month when Ibrahim asked him to help with meal programs, which he said he knew nothing about. He said Ibrahim, whom he considered a mentor, told him to submit forms and arrange the logistics of food distribution.
“I didn’t have much knowledge of the program,” Shariff said. “I trusted his knowledge.”
Shariff said Ibrahim, Afrique’s CFO, and others created the meal reimbursement forms, menus and attendance rosters and ordered the food from suppliers — including Empire Cuisine & Market, the Shakopee restaurant headed by two defendants.
Shariff said he and his team collected the juice boxes, oranges, crackers and other products into grocery bags, loaded the bags into trucks and distributed the bags to families every Saturday in 2021 at a Bloomington mosque and a nearby high school. Goetz showed the jury several photos and videos of the food distributions.
Goetz asked whether the meal count forms serving 2,000 to 3,000 children a day in Bloomington sounded reasonable to Shariff, given his direct knowledge of the work. Shariff said yes, later adding that there were “tons and tons of food coming in.”
Under cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson questioned Shariff about dozens of checks to Afrique, invoices and meal counting forms. Shariff responded that he knew nothing about the entities or people – including other defendants – and that he had not prepared the forms because Ibrahim oversaw them as CFO.
“I did not handle any of the payments,” Shariff said, adding that he did not know where the money came from or how the recipients spent the money.
On redirect inquiry, Goetz asked why Shariff did not know the details of the forms he had filed. Shariff said Ibrahim handled the financial affairs, while Shariff focused on food distributions and worked on securing city permits and architectural designs for the cultural center, which was like a full-time job, he said.
Goetz asked whether Shariff had ever knowingly made a false statement, submitted a bribe or had reason to believe the food program money was the result of criminal activity.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
Over the past month, prosecutors have called more than 30 witnesses. Shariff’s attorneys called nine witnesses Wednesday and Thursday, with several people saying they saw long lines of people outside Bloomington locations receiving meals.
Shariff and the other defendants – Said Shafii Farah, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin and Hayat Mohamed Nur – were charged in 2022 with bank fraud and money laundering, among other charges.
