From the U.K. Daily Mail,
Somali fraudster handed laughably light sentence by Minneapolis judge over $3m taxpayer fraud.
The Daily Mail reports,
A man at the center of a $3 million taxpayer fraud connected to a sweeping Minnesota scam has been sentenced to only one year and one day in prison.
Abdul Abubakar Ali pleaded guilty in 2022 for his role in the Feeding Our Future scandal in Minneapolis, which prosecutors have described as one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes.
If the Daily Mail didn’t like yesterday’s light sentence, they really won’t like today’s. Zamzam Jama received just a six-month jail sentence for her involvement in a $6 million fraud.
Both of these cases involved different parts of the sprawling Feeding Our Future scandal, where some 63 defendants have been convicted, either at trial or by plea agreement. However, only 8 have received sentences, as follows,
The longest sentences have gone to those defendants (shown in bold) who took their cases to trial and lost. And I understand that some defendants had a lesser involvement than others. And it’s all the same judge involved, Nancy Brasel.
What’s most disturbing is the trend. The two sentences handed down this week involved significant downward departures from the deal struck in the plea agreement.
Perhaps the solution is no more plea agreements, everyone stands trial and faces the full force of justice.
Local NBC-affiliate reporter Lou Raguse attended today’s sentencing hearing and filed a report. He reports that Judge Brasel believes that Jama is unlikely to reoffend.
So what? You get the first major felony for free? Jama personally stole almost a half-million dollars from taxpayers. Six months in jail works out to a pretty good wage of $113.71 per hour.
