Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud pled guilty to two felony counts yesterday in federal court in downtown Minneapolis. Defendant No. 25 in the Feeding Our Future case, Mohamud became the 57th individual convicted in the sprawling free-food scandal. He is the 50th defendant to plead guilty in the case.
Mohamud, now aged 35, had a Somali-language interpreter on hand to assist in yesterday’s hearing before U.S. Judge Nancy Brasel. His Friday afternoon guilty plea came just in the nick of time, as he was scheduled to stand trial beginning Tuesday morning (after the Monday holiday) in that same courtroom. Presumably, the other five counts in the case against Mohamud will be dismissed. The trial, which had been scheduled to last three weeks, has been cancelled.
Mohamud was the eighth and final member of the S&S Catering group of defendants to plead guilty.
He has been in federal custody since Monday, accused of witness tampering in the upcoming trial. The issue of his continued detention will be revisited on Tuesday morning, during the time slot that otherwise would have gone to jury selection.
I profiled Mohamud’s role in the Feeding case in this post last week. The always alert Lou Raguse of KARE-11 reported earlier this week,
At his pretrial hearing Tuesday, prosecutors revealed what they plan to do at Mohamud’s trial if he takes the witness stand. They will use evidence they’ve gathered alleging other fraud schemes — that Mohamud billed DHS for a so-called adult daycare he owned, “Minnesota Senior Center,” receiving a half-million dollars in 2020.
In addition, they say he fraudulently applied for COVID-era small business loans through Hennepin County.
Mohamud denies the allegations.
No sentencing date has been set, as of yet. In fact, only one of the eight defendants from the S&S Catering group has been sentenced and only five of the 57, overall, have learned their fate. However, a sentencing hearing has been scheduled for a sixth defendant early next month.