Some frauds are audacious enough on their own. Then there are cases like this one.
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah was already facing 28 years in federal prison for masterminding the largest child nutrition fraud in American history. The scheme, known as “Feeding Our Future,” siphoned $250 million from a federally funded program meant to feed hungry children during the pandemic. Fraudulent reimbursement claims were filed for millions of meals that were never served, and the money was pocketed and laundered on a massive scale.
That should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t.
As originally reported, shortly after jury selection began in his 2024 fraud trial, Farah decided he wanted a different outcome. So he tried to purchase one. He and several associates, including his brothers Said Shafii Farah and Abdulkarim Shafii Farah, along with co-conspirators Ladan Mohamed Ali and Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, researched a sitting juror online, surveilled her home, and tracked her daily movements.
On June 2, 2024, Ladan Ali showed up at the juror’s residence carrying a bag stuffed with $120,000 in cash, along with a promise of more money if she voted not guilty.
The juror went straight to law enforcement.
The next morning, when a court ordered Farah to surrender his phone, he factory-reset the device before handing it over, an apparent attempt to destroy evidence linking him to the bribery plot. Investigators reconstructed the evidence anyway. Farah was convicted regardless.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud added 120 months to the sentence Farah was already serving. Ten additional years, specifically for attempting to corrupt the justice system itself.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen put it plainly: “Tampering with a juror is an assault on the integrity of the courts and the foundation of our democracy. This sentence sends an unmistakable message that justice is not for sale.”
The “Feeding Our Future” network had operated from the beginning on the assumption that American institutions were too loosely monitored to resist systematic exploitation. For years, the scheme worked. Fraudulent claims flowed in. Money flowed out. The participants believed they could loot federal programs designed for vulnerable children and walk away clean.
Most of them did, for a while. Then the FBI caught up.
Farah’s additional miscalculation was treating the courtroom as simply another institution that could be bought. It could not. The juror he targeted reported the bribe immediately. The phone wipe failed to bury the evidence. And now Farah is looking at a combined sentence that will keep him locked up well into old age.
To date, 70 defendants have been charged in connection with the scheme. The fraud stole from hungry children. The bribery attempt tried to steal a verdict on top of that.
Both have now been accounted for. The price turned out to be higher than Farah anticipated.