Feeding Our Future defendant gets twelve years in prison | The mighty 790 KFGO

MINNEAPOLIS – The first defendant in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme to be convicted has been sentenced to 144 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger announced.

On June 7, 2024, following a six-week trial in U.S. District Court before Judge Nancy E. Brasel, Mohamed Jama Ismail, 51, of Savage, Minnesota, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of money laundering. Ismail owned and operated Empire Cuisine and Market LLC, a for-profit restaurant that participated in the scheme as a site, as a vendor for other sites, and as an entity to launder fraudulent proceeds. Based on their fraudulent claims, Ismail and his co-defendants received more than $40 million in fraudulent funds from the Federal Child Nutrition Program.

As proven at trial, Ismail and his co-defendants obtained, embezzled and laundered millions of dollars in program funds intended to reimburse the costs of serving meals to children. Ismail and his co-defendants took advantage of changes to the program designed to ensure disadvantaged children received adequate nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic. The convicted defendants prepared and submitted false documentation. They submitted fraudulent meal count forms purporting to document the number of children and meals served at each location, and false invoices purporting to document the purchase of food to be served to children at the locations. Ismail and his co-defendants also submitted false attendance sheets that included the names and ages of the children who received meals at the locations each day. These rosters are fabricated and created using false names.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Brasel noted: “Minnesota taxpayers are rightly outraged by the brutality and extent of (Ismail’s) crime. The evidence at trial was nothing short of breathtaking.” Judge Brasel also emphasized that during a disaster, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, “many of us have learned to look for helpers . . . when the world was most vulnerable (Ismail) decided not to be a helper, but a thief.

The case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI, IRS – Criminal Investigations and the US Postal Inspection Service.