Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis have charged five people with attempting to deliver a $120,000 bribe to a juror taking part in a high-profile fraud case earlier this month.
US Attorney Andrew Luger compared the alleged conduct to mafia-style tactics.
“This really is an attack on our system of justice,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The indictment names Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 35; Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 23; Said Shafii Farah, 42; Abdulkarim Shafii Farah, 24; and Ladan Mohamed Ali, 31 as part of a scheme involving a cross-country flight, clandestine surveillance, deleted evidence, and a Hallmark bag stuffed with $120,000 in cash.
The bribery case is related to the Feeding Our Future scandal, in which scores of defendants in Minneapolis were accused of stealing millions in federal food aid dollars meant for hungry children during the pandemic.
Earlier this month, five of seven tied to the scandal were convicted on a variety of felony charges, the first in several expected Feeding Our Future trials.
Three named in Wednesday’s bribery indictment were defendants in that case.
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah and Abdimajid Mohamed Nur were among those convicted in the earlier trial, while Said Shafii Farah was acquitted.
According to prosecutors, the larger group of five conspired to bribe the juror and specifically targeted her because they believed she was the only person of color on the jury, a fact they hoped they could use to their advantage given that many named in the Feeding Our Future scandal are part of Minnesota’s large Somali community.
They hoped to give her talking points to the jury, including the idea that, “We are immigrants...they don’t respect or care about us,” prosecutors said.
Once they singled her out, the conspirators allegedly surveilled the juror and purchased a GPS device they hoped to use to bug her car.
The indictment accuses Ali of flying from Seattle to Minneapolis on May 30 to pick up the bribe money.
On June 2, she and Abdulkarim Shafii Farah allegedly drove to the juror’s house, only to find her gone. They left the cash bag with a relative and allegedly promised more if she could secure an acquittal.
The juror reported the alleged attempt to the court and police, and the fraud defendants later allegedly tried to delete messages, videos, and other evidence of their bribe attempt.
She was dismissed from the case in early June.
Lawyers representing Nur and Abdulkarim Shafii Farah did not immediately respond to comment.
