At a hearing in federal districti cout yesterday afternoon Judge Nancy Brasel sentenced Abdimajid Mohamed Nur to 10 years in prison for his role in the $300 million Feeding Our Future case. I attended the hearing along with two other reporters and Nur’s supporters, mostly family. Law enforcement authorities who testified at trial were among the familiar faces who attended as well.
Nur was one of the five defendants convicted in the first Feeding Our Future fraud trial. The second trial followed this year. In total so far, the case has resulted in charges against 78 defendants with seven convictions and 56 guilty pleas.
In addition to the time in prison, Judge Brasel also ordered Nur to pay restitution in the amount of $47,920,514. On its face, the restitution order appears to be a joke. However, a restitution order is mandatory and it further serves as a useful reminder of the scope of Nur’s theft. At the epicenter of the Feeding Our Future case, Nur and his co-conspirators stole more than $47 million in federal child nutrition program funds by claiming to serve 18 million meals to children at more than 30 food distribution sites.
The Department of Justice press release from which I am borrowing heavily in this post reminds me that Nur’s scheme originated in the Empire Cuisine & Market, a small storefront halal market in Shakopee. Empire Cuisine enrolled in the free lunch program in April 2020—during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic and within weeks of registering the company with the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Nur and his co-conspirators immediately opened several federal child nutrition program sites and fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children per day. No meals were served at many of the Empire Cuisine “sites.” Many of their purported food “sites” were nothing more than parking lots or vacant commercial spaces.
Nur played a key role in the fraud scheme. He created and submitted the bulk of the fraudulent meal counts and invoices that he and his co-conspirators used to support their fraudulent claims. Nur also created and submitted fraudulent rosters purporting to list the names of children receiving meals at their fraudulent meal sites. The rosters were filled with the names of fictitious children.
Oh, one more thing. Nur recruited his sister to help with the paperwork. She was one of Nur’s co-defendants at trial and was convicted along with him. In August Judge Brasel sentenced her to 44 months in prison.
Nur went to great lengths to launder his ill-gotten gains through a series of shell companies in the United States and Kenya. He then spent the funds with abandon. Amongh other things, he purchased a 2021 Dodge Ram pickup truck for $64,000 and a few weeks later a 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe for $35,000. He took a honeymoon to the Maldives, where he stayed in a private villa. He spent $30,000 to purchase jewelry in Dubai.
Nur also found the funds useful to obtain a college degree — not for tuition, but rather for the $12,000 he paid to PayMeToDoYourHomeWork.com to take his courses and complete his assignments and exams at the online college Herzing University (campuses in St. Louis Park and other locations around the country). PayMeToDoYourHomework.com guaranteed him an A or B in each course.
Nur got what he bargained for. He received a bachelor’s degree in healthcare management in August 2022. Having graduated from Shakopee High School in 2019 with a 1.75 GPA, Nur “earned” his bachelor’s degree from Herzing in less than 3 years with a 3.42 GPA.
“Where others saw a crisis and rushed to help, you saw money and rushed to steal,” Judge Brasel said. She added: “And given where we were in the pandemic, that’s mind boggling.” She nevertheless cut him slack beyond the lowest range of the sentencing guidelines on account of his youth, his acknowledgement of wrongdoing, his remorse, and his service in the Army Reserve. He enlisetd in the Army Reserve at the age of 17 through the Split Training Option.
Readers with a long memory will recall the stunning conclusion of the first Feeding Our Future trial at the end of the seven weeks of proceedings. In June 2024 Nur participated in the attempt to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash in exchange for a not guilty verdict. Nur and four others were indicted in a separate federal case for the juror bribery scheme. Nur has pled guilty in that case and is awaiting sentencing before Judge David Doty. He faces an additional sentence in that case at a later date.
Chief prosecutor Joe Thompson argued for a sentence of 168 months. That was at the low end of the range set by the federal sentencing guidelines. Judge Brasel nevertheless exercised her discretion to depart downward.
Nur is a refugee and naturalized citizen. Discussing the generosity showed him by the United States, Thompson said, “This country offered the defendant everything. The opportunity for a life, the opportunity to live in peace. And he paid us back by playing us all for fools.”
Thompson said that Nur “participated in two of the most notorious crimes in the history of the state of Minnesota”—the Feeding Our Future fraud and the attempted bribery of a juror. Thompson aptly characterized the case as “a monumental fraud that has rocked the State of Minnesota.” It is “a fraud that has called into question our institutions, our political leaders, and our way of life.”
In his sentencing memo Thompson put the point this way: “His crimes have shaken Minnesota to its core—both in terms of the brazen and staggering nature of the fraud and the complete disrespect and contempt shown for the criminal justice system. His crimes have changed the state forever, and not for the better.”
