Two of the five people charged by the Justice Department with conspiring to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash pleaded not guilty on July 3 in US Magistrate Court in Minneapolis.
Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Said Shafii Farah are two of the five defendants indicted last month in connection with a conspiracy to bribe a juror in the Feeding Our Future trial, one of the largest fraud cases related to federal pandemic-era funding.
The two men are each charged with conspiracy to bribe a juror, corruptly influencing a juror, and bribery of a juror.
During the July 3 arraignment, US Magistrate Judge Tony Leung said that in his decades as a judge, he never saw such a “precalculated and organized” attempt to bribe a juror, a crime that he described as an attack on the heart of the US judicial system and the rule of law.
Defense attorneys asked the judge to release the two men pending trial, arguing that there was no presumption of detention for the charges they faced. The defense insisted that the men’s ties to the community prevented them from being a flight risk.
However, the judge said the threat they posed to the rule of law placed their community at risk and determined that the defendants should be detained.
A third defendant, Ladan Mohamed Ali, was already arraigned in late June and pleaded not guilty.
The fourth, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, was arraigned separately on July 10 after retaining a new attorney.
No arraignment had yet been scheduled for the final defendant Abdimajid Mohamed Nur.
According to court documents released by the US Attorney’s Office, the five men researched the juror’s social media information and surveilled her by installing a GPS device on her vehicle and tracking her habits.
Federal investigators concluded that the juror was targeted because she was the only person of color on the jury and the youngest member.
The juror, known only as “Juror 52” in court records, contacted the police after Ladan Mohamed Ali showed up at her home with a gift bag containing the $120,000 in cash and promised that more money would follow if the juror voted to acquit.
