MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Opening statements are expected Monday in the fraud trial of seven people charged in what federal prosecutors have called a massive scheme to exploit lax rules during the COVID-19 pandemic and steal from a program meant to provide meals to children in Minnesota.
The seven will be the first of 70 defendants to go on trial in the alleged scam. Eighteen others have already pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors have said the seven collectively stole over $40 million in a conspiracy that cost taxpayers $250 million — one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in the country. Federal authorities say they have recovered about $50 million.
Prosecutors say just a fraction of the money went to feed low-income kids, and that the rest was spent on luxury cars, jewelry, travel and property.
The food aid came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was administered by the state Department of Education. Nonprofits and other partners under the program were supposed to serve meals to kids.
Two of the groups involved, Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition, were small nonprofits before the pandemic, but in 2021 they disbursed around $200 million each. Prosecutors allege they produced invoices for meals that were never served, ran shell companies, laundered money, indulged in passport fraud, and accepted kickbacks.
An Associated Press analysis published last June documented how thieves across the country plundered billions in federal COVID-19 relief dollars in the greatest grift in U.S. history. The money was meant to fight the worst pandemic in a century and stabilize an economy in freefall.
But the AP found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion, while another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represented 10% of the $4.3 trillion the government disbursed in COVID relief by last fall. Nearly 3,200 defendants have been charged, according to the U.S. Justice Department. About $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic aid has been seized.
The defendants going on trial Monday before U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel in Minneapolis are Abdiaziz Shafii Farah; Mohamed Jama Ismail; Abdimajid Mohamed Nur; Said Shafii Farah; Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin; Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff; and Hayat Mohamed Nur. They have all pleaded not guilty. Their trial is expected to last around six weeks.
“The defendants’ fraud, like an aggressive cancer, spread and grew,” prosecutors wrote in a summary of their case.
Prosecutors say many of the purported feeding sites were nothing more than parking lots and derelict commercial spaces. Others turned out to be city parks, apartment complexes and community centers.
"By the time the defendants’ scheme was exposed in early 2022, they collectively claimed to have served over 18 million meals from 50 unique locations for which they fraudulently sought reimbursement of $49 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program,” prosecutors wrote.
Among the defendants awaiting trial is Aimee Bock, the founder of Feeding our Future. She's one of 14 defendants expected to face trial together at a later date. Bock has maintained her innocence, saying she never stole and saw no evidence of fraud among her subcontractors.
The scandal stirred up the 2022 legislative session and campaign in Minnesota.
Republicans attacked Gov. Tim Walz, saying he should have stopped the fraud earlier. But Walz pushed back, saying the state’s hands were tied by a court order in a lawsuit by Feeding Our Future to resume payments despite its concerns. He said the FBI asked the state to continue the payments while the investigation continued.
The Minnesota Department of Education now has an independent inspector general who is better empowered to investigate fraud and waste.
FILE - The offices of Feeding Our Future are shown Jan. 27, 2022, in St. Anthony, Minn., a week after an FBI raid. Opening statements are expected Monday, April 29, 2024, in the fraud trial of seven defendants charged what federal prosecutors allege was a massive scheme to exploit lax rules during the COVID-19 pandemic and steal from a program meant to provide meals to low-income children in Minnesota. (Shari L. Gross/Star Tribune via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has blocked the release of audio from President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel about his handling of classified documents, arguing Thursday that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.
The dispute over access to the recordings is at the center of a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress and more broadly to hinder the Democratic president's reelection effort in the final months of the closely contested campaign.
“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes," White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a scathing letter to House Republicans ahead of scheduled votes by two House committees to refer Garland to the Justice Department for the contempt charges over the department’s refusal to hand over the audio.
“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate,” Siskel added.
Garland separately advised Biden in a letter made public Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.
“There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the Justice Department,” Garland told reporters. “This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just most recent.”
Garland said in his letter to Biden that lawmakers' efforts "are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future."
The Justice Department also warned Congress that a contempt effort would create “unnecessary and unwarranted conflict," with Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte saying: “It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress.
Siskel's letter to lawmakers comes after the uproar from Biden’s aides and allies over special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about Biden’s age and mental acuity, and it highlights concerns in a difficult election year over how potentially embarrassing moments from the lengthy interview could be exacerbated by the release, or selective release, of the audio.
The transcript of the Hur interview showed Biden struggling to recall some dates and occasionally confusing some details — something longtime aides says he’s done for years in both public and private — but otherwise showing deep recall in other areas. Biden and his aides are particularly sensitive to questions about his age. At 81, he’s the oldest ever president, and he's seeking another four-year term.
Hur, a former senior official in the Trump administration Justice Department, was appointed as a special counsel in January 2023 following the discovery of classified documents in multiple locations tied to Biden.
Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”
But investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure related a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, house, including in a garage, an office and a basement den.
The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. Biden kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday. Some of that information was shared with a ghostwriter with whom he published memoirs in 2007 and 2017.
FILE - Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during the 36th Annual Candlelight Vigil to honor the law enforcement officers who lost their lives in 2023, in Washington, on May 13, 2024. House Republicans are set to advance contempt of Congress charges against Garland for his refusal to turn over unredacted audio of a special counsel interview with President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
President Joe Biden, right, sitting next to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, left, speaks at the beginning of his meeting with the Combatant Commanders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, before hosting them for a dinner. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden speaks at a memorial service to honor law enforcement officers who've lost their lives in the past year, during National Police Week ceremonies at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
