Five indicted in jury tampering scheme in coronavirus fraud trial

Five people have been charged with offering $120,000 (£94,000) in cash bribes to jurors to prevent a conviction in a US pandemic fraud trial.

The 23-year-old juror, who has not been named, reported receiving a gift bag stuffed with cash during the final day of the federal criminal trial in Minneapolis.

“This is the kind of thing that happens in Mafia movies,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said earlier this month after the scheme was uncovered.

Prosecutors have charged 70 people with stealing $250 million from federal food programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three of the five indicted on bribery charges were on trial for providing false names for non-existent children they claimed to be feeding and creating false documents to pocket millions of dollars.

Abdiaziz Shafi’i Farah, Abdimadjid Mohamed Noor, Saeed Shafi’i Farah, Abdulkarim Shafi’i Farah and Radhan Mohamed Ali were charged with conspiracy to tamper with a jury, tampering with a jury and tampering with influencing a juror.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Lugar, at a press conference on Wednesday, called the bribery allegations “a horrific attack on our justice system,” adding that he was grateful the jury “was not bought.”

Prosecutors say the group targeted the woman because she was the youngest member of the jury pool and “they believed she was the only juror of color.”

The jurors were on a trial involving the theft of more than $40 million by employees of Feeding Our Future, a now-defunct charity that received funds from a federal food assistance program aimed at feeding hungry children.

Earlier this month, a jury convicted five of the defendants in the embezzlement case but acquitted the other two.

Luger said Abdiaziz Shafi’i Farah, Abdimadjid Mohamed Noor and Saeed Shafi’i Farah had been trying to convince the rest of the jury that the prosecution was racist and to acquit the defendants.

Prosecutors said the suspects devised instructions to persuade jurors that would tell them, “We are immigrants. They don’t respect us. They don’t care about us.”

Prosecutors said one of the defendants who was not indicted under the original plan, Ladan Muhammad Ali, flew from Seattle to Minneapolis on May 30 and began tracking her movements before she approached the jury.

On the evening of June 2, she and the other defendant allegedly went to the juror’s home to deliver cash to her relatives.

Prosecutors say he promised the defendant’s family more money if they could persuade other jurors to vote against convicting him.

Bribery of a juror is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, this is the first criminal case in the state to attempt to tamper with a federal jury.