MINNEAPOLIS — Editor's note: The video above first aired on KARE 11 in July 2024.
The defendants charged in the $120,000 juror bribe attempt during the Feeding our Future meal fraud trial waited anxiously the next morning to see if the juror showed up in court, thinking that if she did, that meant she was "all-in."
That's according to a court document filed Monday by prosecutors in the case. But when lead prosecutor Joe Thompson announced the bribe, the document said the defendants immediately began deleting messaging apps on their phones.
Thompson filed the new document in an attempt to add information to the presentence report of Mukhtar Shariff, who was convicted in the meal fraud trial, but until now, was not implicated in the bribe scheme.
"Since the issuance of the final presentence investigation, the government has learned that defendant Shariff knew about the bribery attempt and destroyed communications he had with his co-defendant Abdiaziz Farah about the bribe," the document said. "But despite Shariff’s attempt to destroy these communications, FBI Computer Analysis and Response Team members were able to recover the notifications of incoming messages on Shariff’s phone as well as Abdimajid Nur and Said Farah’s phones."
Ladan Ali has already pleaded guilty to her role in the bribery plot, dropping off the bag of money at the home of the woman referred to as "Juror 52." Ali said she initially planned to steal the money for herself but was not able to because one of her co-defendants allegedly came with her at the last minute to video record her delivering the bribe.
Messages recovered from Shariff's phone showed his co-defendants allegedly asked how to clean up the video of the bribe since it was raining outside and looked blurry.
Court documents also revealed messages from the alleged mastermind of the bribe plot that night, Abdiaziz Farah, to Shariff:
- 10:26 p.m. from Abdiaziz to Shariff: “100 for our freedom is nothing bro, worth trying everything bro”
- 10:29 p.m. from Abdiaziz to Shariff: “That’s it bro. I have a good feeling she will come through and that’s a lot of money for her family.”
Then Farah makes reference to the federal judge presiding over their case, Nancy Brasel:
- 11:01 p.m. from Abdiaziz to Shariff: “Get some sleep man. You got judge Nancy . . . waiting for you”
- 11:08 p.m. from Abdiaziz to Shariff: “Ameen bro. She is a terrible human being. My wife and siblings stopped coming to court coz they couldn’t stand her”
- 11:14 p.m. from Abdiaziz to Shariff: “She is still a G employee who is jealous of all of us. InshaAllah it will be smooth bro! Goodnight bro.”
The morning Thompson announced the bribe and asked for the defendants to be taken into custody, Thompson noticed several of them immediately grab their cell phones. FBI analysis determined that Shariff uninstalled and deleted the Signal encrypted messaging app from his iPhone at 8:43 a.m., according to the court document.
Shariff's sentencing date is not currently scheduled. Prosecutors are asking for 21 years in prison.