Ahmed Yasin Ali became the 20th defendant in the sprawling Feeding Our Future scancal to be sentenced.
Your corresondent was there.
Ali was defendant No. 37 (out of 80, overall), one of three members of the JigJiga group of defendants. He was the 53rd to be convicted either through guilty plea or courtroom trial.
Ali was given just a probation-only sentence, with the probation lasting for the statutory minimum of 1 year. In pronouncing the sentence, district Judge Nancy Brasel described a probation-only felony sentence as “rare,” but this represents the fourth one she’s handed down, just in this case (4 out of 20, or 20 percent of all sentences.
In his famous song (and later movie) Alice’s Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie tells the story of his infamous Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering. At one point, Guthrie is in jail awaiting release. At one point, a cellmate asks,
Kid…what did you get?
Arlo replies,
I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up the garbage.
Ahmed doesn’t even have to pick up the garbage. Ali was assisted this evening by a taxpayer-paid, court-appointed attorney and a taxpayer-paid Somali-language interpreter. He reportedly speaks little English and is not an American citizen. He blamed it all on his half-brother, Liban Yasin Alishire, who is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
In the silver-linings department, the convicted felon Ali is scheduled for a hearing in Immigration Court next week to discuss his status.
Ali’s lawyer informed the court today about Ali’s fear of being deported back to his native land, a nation that Ali has visited several times in recent years as he awaited trial on multiple felony fraud charges. I guess that means Somalia is a great place to visit but you wouldn’t want to be deported there.
Some other courtroom events for the Feeding Our Future case coming up later in August:
