Three Farah brothers still in custody in Feeding Our Future bribery case
After a series of hearings this morning at the Federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, the three brothers appeared in sequence before Magistrate Judge Tony Leung.
All three are pleading not guilty in the bribery case. All three appeared in court wearing their orange, jail-issued outfits.
The alleged ringleader, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, was up first. His retained private lawyer was unavailable to appear this morning, so his hearing was postponed for a week.
Abdiaziz was convicted on 23 of 24 counts in the recent Federal fraud case and was already in custody on that basis. So he remains in custody, for now.
His older brother, Said Shafii Farah, had been acquitted on all counts in the fraud case. He was re-arrested last month for his alleged role in the plot to bribe juror #52. It was pointed out that Said was the one to provide the $200,000 in cash to fund the plot and that he owns residential real estate in Nairobi, Kenya.
As a countervailing factor, Said’s local real estate holdings, specifically property he owns on Lake Street in south Minneapolis, were mentioned in this morning’s hearing. Among his holdings are three connected commercial properties on West Lake Street.
The properties shown above have an assessed value of $1.3 million and are owned by Said’s Lafey Plaza LLC company, according to county property records. Lafey Plaza and its corporate banking records are mentioned six times in the master exhibit list for the recently concluded fraud trial where Said was acquitted.
Despite the best efforts of his lawyer to argue for Said’s release, Judge Leung was having none of it this morning.
The prosecutor described the alleged bribery plot as “a deeply corrupt scheme.” The judge mentioned Thomas Hobbes and his “state of nature” ideas in ordering Said’s further detention.
Last to appear was the younger brother, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah, who has not been charged in the broader fraud case. Abdulkarim’s lawyer mentioned that his client was born and raised in the United States and holds American citizenship.
The lawyer claims that Abdulkarim is only a half-brother to Abdiaziz and Said, sharing a common father. The lawyer also mentioned that the father now resides in Kenya, a fact that I don’t think helped his client’s cause.
It was claimed that Abdulkarim resides in Section 8 housing. Not mentioned in court this morning was the fact (documented in court filings) that a search of Abdulkarim’s apartment last month uncovered $26,000 in cash.
In ordering Abdulkarim’s continued detention, the judge mentioned the fact that millions of dollars remain unaccounted for in the larger fraud case.
The trial in the juror bribery case is scheduled to begin on September 16.