The headline from a press release issued today by the office of state attorney general Keith Ellison,
Attorney General Ellison requires charity to dissolve over governance violations
File this under the category of a Friday, post-election, holiday weekend news dump. The nonprofit was named Urban Advantage Services (UAS). It was founded as a food charity in November 2020 by Ilo Amba, the wife of sitting Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman.
The agreement to dissolve the charity was executed back on October 28, but not made public until today. We wrote about this nonprofit more than two years ago, and our correspondent visited its already abandoned 10th Street location.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported back in October 2022 that the nonprofit UAS took some $460,000 out of the free-food programs through the scandal-linked nonprofit Partners in Nutrition. Partners in Nutrition itself has gone out of business in the wake of the Feeding Our Future case.
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) noted in October 2023 that UAS was one of 23 Feeding Our Future-linked nonprofits sued by the attorney general. The MPR headline,
Lawsuit alleges link between councilman’s wife, food fraud scheme
Neither Osman nor Amba have been charged with or accused of any wrongdoing in the Feeding Our Future scandal.
UAS does not appear to have filed any tax returns during its four-year existence. According to records maintained by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), UAS was granted tax-exempt status in April 2021. That status was revoked in May 2023 for failure to file returns.
The MN Secretary of State’s database of registered businesses shows Urban Advantage Services as “inactive” as of January 2023.