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CASE 0:22-cr-00124-NEB-DTS Doc. 669 Filed 09/30/24 Page 1 of 15
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
Criminal No. 22-124(7) (NEB/DTS)
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
)
Plaintiff, )
) GOVERNMENT’S POSITION
v. ) REGARDING SENTENCING
)
MUKHTAR MOHAMED SHARIFF, )
)
Defendant. )
The United States of America, by and through its attorneys, Andrew M. Luger,
United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, and Joseph H. Thompson, Harry
M. Jacobs, Matthew S. Ebert, and Daniel W. Bobier, Assistant United States
Attorneys, submits the following sentencing memorandum and respectfully requests
that the Court impose a sentence of 262 months in prison.
I. BACKGROUND
Defendant Mukhtar Shariff participated in the largest Covid-19 fraud scheme
in the United States. His crimes have shaken the 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.
The Court must send a message in the strongest possible terms to Shariff and
anyone else who believes they can shamelessly steal take advantage of state and
federal social safety net program, steal with impunity money intended for children,
and abuse the rights afforded by the criminal justice system.
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A. Shariff’s Fraud Scheme
Defendant Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff was convicted of participating in a
massive fraudulent scheme to obtain federal child nutrition program funds intended
to provide free meals to children in need. The defendant and his co-conspirators
obtained, misappropriated, and laundered more than $40 million in program funds
that were intended as reimbursements for the cost of serving meals to children. They
did so by exploiting changes in the program intended to ensure underserved children
received adequate nutrition during the Covid-19 pandemic. Shariff and his co-
conspirators took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic—and the resulting program
changes—to enrich themselves by fraudulently misappropriating millions of dollars
in federal child nutrition program funds.
Shariff moved to Minnesota in October 2020. Almost immediately, he joined
in the ongoing scheme to fraudulently obtain federal child nutrition program funds.
As the jury heard at trial, Shariff planned to use the proceeds of the fraudulent
scheme to build and fund the construction of a for-profit cultural center. In December
2020, he and Mahad Ibrahim created a PowerPoint outlining their business plan.
According to their business plan, they planned to use federal child nutrition program
money to fund the ongoing operations of the Afrique cultural center.
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Shariff testified at trial. During his testimony, Shariff tried to distance himself
from this business plan, which he claimed related to future plans to participate in the
food program following the construction and opening of the Afrique cultural center
six months or a year later. That was not true. In reality, in January 2021, the Dar al
Farooq site began claiming to be serving meals to 2,000 children a day. Within a
month, the site claimed to be serving meals to 3,500 children a day.
Shariff signed and submitted fraudulent meal count forms claiming—falsely—
that the Dar al Farooq site was serving two meals a day, seven days a week, to 3,500
children. Shariff also submitted fake rosters purporting to list the names of 3,500
children who received meals at the Dar al Farooq site. Shariff submitted these
fraudulent meal counts, invoices, and rosters to Feeding Our Future for
reimbursement.
In all, Shariff and his co-defendants claimed to have served nearly 2 million
meals from January to November 2021 at the Dar al Farooq site for which they
claimed to be entitled to nearly $5 million in federal child nutrition program funds.
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Shariff’s actions did not go unnoticed at the Dar al Farooq mosque. In a text
message exchange, his co-defendants Abdiaziz Farah and Abdimajid Nur discussed
social media posts in which the “youth of Dar al Farooq” accused Shariff of being the
“master mind” of a scheme to use the names of youth basketball players to defraud
the federal child nutrition program.
In addition to his fake rosters and invoices, Shariff also convinced a
Bloomington Public School employee to send an inaccurate email supporting his fraud
scheme. At trial, Dinna Wade-Ardley, the director of educational equity at
Bloomington Public Schools, told the jury, speaking of her interactions with Shariff,
that, “I feel taken advantage of, I feel the kids were taken advantage of.”
In addition to claiming to run one of the largest fraudulent food sites in
Minnesota, Shariff also used Afrique Hospitality Group to launder money from a
number of individuals and groups involved in the larger “Feeding Our Future” fraud
scheme. He received more than $1.7 million purportedly for the sale or distribution
of food on behalf of the ThinkTechAct Foundation. He received nearly $500,000 from
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Cosmopolitan Business Solutions LLC, the entity that ran Safari Restaurant. Again,
these funds were purportedly for the sale or distribution of food to the Safari
Restaurant group, whose owners are charged with defrauding the federal child
nutrition program in United States v. Aimee Marie Bock, et al., 22 CR 223 (NEB/DTS).
Through his entity Afrique Hospitality Group, Shariff received and laundered
approximately $800,000 from a number of entities created and used by former
Feeding Our Future employee Ikram Yusuf Mohamed and her family to defraud the
federal child nutrition program. Again, these funds were purportedly for the sale or
distribution of food to children at federal child nutrition program sites run by Ikram
Mohamed and her family, all of whom have been charged with participating in the
fraudulent scheme to obtain federal child nutrition program funds. United States v.
Ikram Yusuf Mohamed, et al., 24 CR 15 (NEB/DTS).
B. Shariff’s Trial
Shariff has never accepted any responsibility or shown any remorse for his
crime. To the contrary, not only did Shariff testify falsely at trial, but he also showed
complete contempt for the Court and the criminal justice system.
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Shariff testified falsely at trial. He denied participating in any fraud scheme.
He claimed that he wanted to give back to the community and help kids. He claimed
that he served the number of meals claimed at the Dar al Farooq site. Despite being
the CEO of Afrique, he disclaimed any knowledge of the meal counts, invoices, and
rosters that he submitted to Feeding Our Future. Instead, he attempted to point the
finger at his absent co-defendant, Mahad Ibrahim, who was not present at trial. The
jury flat out rejected his testimony.
Shariff also presented false testimony from at least one other witness. Shariff
called one of the imams at the Dar al Farooq mosque, who was a personal friend, to
testify in his defense. Although Shariff’s defense was that he served meals one or two
times a week at the Dar al Farooq mosque, the imam testified—falsely—that he saw
Shariff and his team serving meals at the Dar al Farooq mosque seven days a week.
Shariff also showed contempt for the court process in other ways, including by
making illicit audio recordings of trial testimony in flagrant violation of the rules
governing federal trials. Like all federal courts, the District of Minnesota prohibits
the recording of courtroom testimony or proceedings. This rule is hardly a secret. It
applies in every federal court in the United States. The policy was posted outside the
courtroom for all to see.
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The policy is significant and exists for a reason: to protect the sanctity of the
proceedings and all those taking part in them. Indeed, while the reporters who
covered the trial in the courtroom and around the courthouse throughout the trial
regularly attempted to photograph or video the defendants and parties as they
entered the courthouse, they were never allowed to take a photograph or record the
trial proceedings.
Despite this basic foundational rule prohibiting the recording of courtroom
testimony and proceedings, defendant Shariff made audio recordings of witness
testimony during the trial. When agents searched Shariff’s phone after his co-
defendants attempted to bribe a juror, they recovered 14 audio recordings of witness
testimony taken during the trial. The agents recovered more than 11 hours of
recorded trial testimony from Shariff’s phone, which included testimony from seven
days of trial. The recordings were saved in the Apple notes feature on Shariff’s phone
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and FBI cyber analysis response team agents concluded that the recordings were
made on Shariff’s phone.
Finally, as the Court is aware, some of the defendants in Shariff’s trial
attempted to bribe one of the jurors in exchange for her return of a not guilty verdict.
They targeted Juror 52 because she was the youngest juror and they believed her to
be the only juror of color. After researching the Juror 52’s address and other personal
information online and via social media, they conducted surveillance of Juror 52 to
confirm her home address and obtain information about her daily habits. This
included following Juror 52 home as she left court during the trial.
The participants in the bribe attempt used an encrypted messaging application
called Signal to communicate about the plan to bribe Juror 52. Signal is an encrypted
text messaging app that provides end-to-end encryption to ensure messages cannot
be intercepted or obtained by law enforcement agents pursuant to a search warrant
or other court order.
On June 2, 2024—the night before closing arguments were scheduled to
conclude and jury deliberations were to begin—Ladan Ali and Abdulkarim Farah
delivered $120,000 cash bribe to Juror 52’s house. Ladan Ali explained that the
money was a present in exchange for a not guilty verdict, and that there would be
more money if Juror 52 returned a not guilty verdict. Fortunately, Juror 52 did not
accept the bribe. She called the police
On the morning of June 3, 2024, the defendants learned that Juror 52 had
called 911 to report the bribe. The Court ordered the defendants to put their phones
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in airplane mode and surrender them to the FBI. The government obtained a warrant
to search the contents of Shariff’s phone. When they did, they found that Shariff
deleted the signal messaging application from his phone at approximately 8:43 a.m.
on June 3, 2024—right after learning that Juror 52 had reported the bribe attempt
to law enforcement.
II. THE GUIDELINES RANGE
A. The Base Offense Level and Loss Amount
The base offense level is 7 pursuant to Guidelines § 2B1.1(a)(1). PSR ¶103. The
base offense level is increased 22 levels pursuant to Guidelines § 2B1.1(1)(L) because
the loss was more than $25 million but less than $65 million. PSR ¶104. The offense
level is increased an additional 2 levels pursuant to Guidelines § 2B1.1(b)(9)(A)
because the offense involved a misrepresentation that Shariff was acting on behalf of
a charitable or educational organization. PSR ¶105. The offense level is increased 2
levels pursuant to Guidelines § 2B1.1(b)(10)(C) because the offense involved
sophisticated means. PSR ¶106.
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The offense level is increased 2 levels pursuant to Guidelines § 2B1.1(b)(12)
because the offense involved conduct described in 18 U.S.C. § 1040 (Fraud in
Connection with a Major Disaster or Emergency Benefits). PSR ¶107. The offense
level is increased by 2 levels pursuant to Guidelines § 2S1.1(b)(2)(B) because the
defendant was convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1956. PSR ¶113.
B. Obstruction of Justice
Although Shariff testified at trial and the jury rejected his testimony, the PSR
did not apply a 2-level enhancement for obstruction of justice. PSR ¶¶110, 116. The
government’s understanding is that the probation office’s policy is not to weigh in on
the applicability of an obstruction of justice enhancement based on a defendant’s own
false testimony at trial because the Court is better situated to evaluate the
application of that enhancement. Accordingly, the PSR did not discuss the
applicability of an obstruction enhancement.
The government believes the Court should apply a 2-level enhancement for
obstruction of justice based both on Shariff’s false trial testimony as well as his
destruction of evidence by deleting the encrypted messaging application used to
discuss the attempt to bribe Juror 52.1
Shariff provided materially false testimony at trial. Guidelines § 3C1.1 states
that an obstruction of justice enhancement applies when “the defendant willfully
obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of
1 Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allow a party, with good cause, to
raise a new objection to the PSR “at any time before sentence is imposed.” Fed. R. Crim. P.
32(i)(1)(D).
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justice during the course of the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing.” Application
Note 4 lists the types of conduct to which this application applies, including
“committing, suborning, or attempting to suborn perjury.” Guidelines § 3C1.1,
application note 4(b). A witness violates the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621,
when he “gives false testimony concerning a material matter with the willful intent
to provide false testimony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty
memory.” United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993).
Shariff committed perjury during his trial testimony. He lied across a range of
subjects. He did so repeatedly. He did so deliberately. And he did so not out of
confusion or mistake, but rather because he believed he could trick the jury and avoid
being convicted for his scheme.
Second, as noted above, Shariff deleted the Signal messaging application from
his phone on the morning of June 3, 2024, when the Court ordered him and his co-
defendants to turn over their phones to the FBI. This was the same messaging
application that co-defendants used to formulate, execute, and discuss the plan to
bribe Juror 52. Shariff’s destruction of evidence of the bribe attempt clearly qualifies
as obstruction of justice. Guidelines § 3C1.1, application note 4(D) (“destroying or
concealing . . . evidence that is material to an official investigation or judicial
proceeding” is an example of conduct covered by the obstruction of justice
enhancement).
C. Criminal History
Shariff falls in criminal history category I. PSR ¶125.
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D. Advisory Guidelines Range
An offense level of 37 and criminal history level I results in an advisory
Guidelines range of 210 to 262 months in prison.
III. GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING RECOMMENDATION
Based on a review of the § 3553(a) factors, the government recommends that
the Court impose a sentence of 262 months in prison.
A. Nature and Circumstances of the Offense
Shariff participated is one of the largest fraud schemes in the history of the
District of Minnesota, and the single largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country.
He took advantage of a once-in-a-century global pandemic to enrich himself. He
abused the generosity of Minnesota’s generous social safety net—a system designed
to ensure that no child goes without food.
The cynicism of his crime is staggering. Shariff and his co-defendants carried
out their scheme using fictitious non-profit educational companies. He acted under
the guise of a mosque and a public school district. And he used the names of fake
children and misappropriated the names of children who signed up for a youth
basketball league.
To this day, Shariff has taken no responsibility for his crime. During his time
on the stand, he repeatedly denied involvement in the fraud scheme and claimed that
he wanted to help feed kids. That was not true. He only wanted to help himself.
B. History and Characteristics of the Defendant
Nothing in Shariff’s background explains or excuses his crime. Shariff came to
the United States at the age of 5. PSR ¶137. He and his family arrived as refugees.
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PSR ¶¶136-37. He played high school basketball. PSR ¶140. Shariff had an
opportunity to attend college, though he did not graduate. PSR ¶¶140-41, 156-57. His
brother attended medical school. PSR ¶141. Shariff later studied the Islamic religion
and Arabic language in Cairo, Egypt. PSR ¶¶141, 158. After finishing his studies,
Shariff worked as a consultant for Microsoft. Shariff reported that the work was
“lucrative.” PSR ¶144.
Nevertheless, in late 2020, Shariff moved to Minnesota and immediately began
defrauding the federal child nutrition program operated by the Minnesota
Department of Education. As explained above, by early January, Shariff registered
Afrique Hospitality Group with the Minnesota Secretary of State. And he
immediately claimed to be serving two meals a day to first 2,000 children a day and
then 3,500 children a day, seven days a week, at the Dar al Farooq site.
Shariff claimed that he wanted to use Afrique to start a community center,
complete with office space, restaurants and a coffee shop, a daycare, and a library.
Maybe so. But that’s not what he did. Instead, he used Afrique to fraudulently obtain
and launder millions of dollars in federal child nutrition program funds. Rather than
start a small business, he committed a massive fraud.
C. The Need for Deterrence
Shariff participated is one of the largest fraud schemes in the history of the
District of Minnesota, and the single largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country.
But Shariff didn’t just take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to enrich himself and
his co-conspirators. He took advantage of our state’s compassion, and its efforts to
ensure no child went hungry.
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Make no mistake, Shariff’s fraud has done great damage to the state. It has
eroded trust in the government and raised questions about the sustainability of the
state’s system of social services. His crime undermined and endangered legitimate
nonprofit organizations that rely on donations to carry out necessary and important
charitable work.2
What is worse, through his actions, Shariff has cast doubt on the integrity of
the criminal justice system and trial by jury.3 Shariff has demonstrated his complete
and total contempt for the Court, the trial, and the criminal justice system. His
actions have changed the way this Court and the District of Minnesota will handle
criminal trials going forward.
Despite this, to this day, Shariff has denied any and all responsibility for his
crime. He has not expressed an ounce of remorse for his actions. He appears to have
felt no shame.
Cases like this are difficult to investigate and prosecute, which results in the
widely held belief that perpetrators routinely get away with these crimes. The Court
must send a message that circling the wagons, lying, and attempting to hide this kind
of criminal activity will not be tolerated. And the sentence must send a message of
2 See, e.g., Kelly Smith, Feeding Our Future fraud investigation casts scrutiny on
Minnesota nonprofits, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Dec. 22, 2022), available at
https://www.startribune.com/feeding-our-future-fraud-investigation-casts-scrutiny-on-
minnesota-nonprofits/600238797.
3 See, e.g., Editorial Board, A shocking ‘mob movie’ bribe attempt: Alleged attempt to
sway juror in Feeding Our Future trial is a further assault on public trust, Minneapolis Star
Tribune (June 4, 2024), available at https://www.startribune.com/a-shocking-mob-movie-
bribe-attempt/600371055.
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deterrence to all those who feel they can corrupt the criminal justice process by lying,
breaking the rules, and obstructing justice.
Taking into consideration the Sentencing Guidelines, as well as all of the other
factors required to be considered under § 3553(a), the government respectfully
suggests that a sentence of 262 months in prison appropriately reflects the
seriousness of Shariff’s crimes, promotes respect for the law, provides a just
punishment, and creates adequate deterrence not only to Shariff, but to all other
individuals who take advantage of the state and believe that they are above the law.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the government respectfully requests that the
Court impose a sentence of 262 months in prison.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dated: September 30, 2024 ANDREW M. LUGER
United States Attorney
/s/ Joseph H. Thompson
BY: JOSEPH H. THOMPSON
HARRY M. JACOBS
MATTHEW S. EBERT
DANIEL W. BOBIER
Assistant U.S. Attorneys
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