(Center of the American Experiment) — Hints at a widening scope for the Feeding Our Future bribery case emerged at an ordinary court hearing Thursday in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there.
The occasion was a status conference for the most recent batch of defendants in the Feeding Our Future fraud case. The seven associated with the lead defendant Ikram Mohamed, a former Feeding Our Future employee. In our numbering system, they are Defendants Nos. 63 through 69. Of the other six in the group, five are related to Ikram either through blood or marriage.
The indictment was first announced in February 2024. The original trial date was set for July 2024, but at this point, that date now looks likely to slip into early 2026.
As I noted back in February, three of these defendants were campaign donors to Minneapolis city council member Jeremiah Ellison and one to Jeremiah’s father, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison.
Towards the end of Thursday’s hearing, the attorney for Shakur Abdisalam (No. 67), husband of Ikram (No. 63), mentioned that an FBI raid had recently been conducted on the private home of Shakur and Ikram.
Through his lawyer, Shakur appeared to be asking for the return of his phone, seized in the raid, on the grounds that the target of the raid was his wife, not him.
The prosecutor replied that his office and the FBI were only in the early stages of reviewing the material seized during the raid in question. Further, the raid was not conducted in conjunction with the Ikram Mohamed fraud case in court that morning, but as part of the investigation into the Feeding Our Future juror bribery case.
In either event, Shakur will have to wait on his phone’s return. No word on whether any evidence was found linking Ikram or Shakur to the juror bribery case.
In another notable development, Defendant No. 64, Suleman Mohamed, appeared in court without counsel. Suleman, Ikram’s brother, is currently between lawyers as his original attorney, Joe Friedberg, passed away in June.
Suleman has been unable to obtain new counsel, but for the purposes of the Thursday hearing, his brother Gandi (No. 69) lent him his lawyer, who then performed double duty.
This group hearing was the third of four Feeding Our Future status conferences held Thursday.
The first status conference of the day had been scheduled for 9 a.m. But in a scene directly out of My Cousin Vinny, at the appointed hour, everyone was seated and ready to go: the judge, the prosecutor, the court reporter, the clerk and the defendant. Everyone except the defense lawyer. By the time he arrived (traffic, he claimed) the hearing ended up pancaked with the 10 a.m. status conference.
The delayed hearing featured the punctual defendant, Mohamed Muse Noor (No. 49), who founded Xogmaal Media and works under the stage name Deeq Darajo. Noor was reportedly arrested back in September 2022 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport before he could board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. His office is located on Oakland Ave. in south Minneapolis.
The slightly delayed 10 a.m. status conference featured another would-be fugitive, Mekfira Hussein (No. 48). Mekfira was the founder of the nonprofit Shamsia Hopes, which, prior to her indictment in the case, had always been put forward as the one legitimate success story of Feeding Our Future.
Mekfira was arrested in September 2022 before she could board a flight from Minneapolis to Ethiopia, booked on a one-way ticket. She was later indicted along with her husband, Abduljabar Hussein (No. 50). Both were in court Thursday.
While in court Thursday, both were formally arraigned, she on 14 counts, he on 13 counts. Both pled not guilty.
Later, Mekfira boldly inquired, through her lawyer, when she might be able to resume her international travels. The judge on duty politely suggested that she re-direct her query to the presiding judge in the case.
Currently, there is no trial date set for the Husseins and will likely get pushed to 2026.
Finally, at 2 p.m., the single defendant (No. 58) Ayan Abukar appeared for her status conference. You will recall that Ayan received an outstanding refugee award from Gov. Tim Walz back in 2021.
This article was originally published at the Center of the American Experiment.
Bill Glahn
Bill Glahn is an Adjunct Policy Fellow with Center of the American Experiment.
