A juror was dismissed after reporting how a woman left a bag of $120,000 cash at her home, along with a note urging her to “acquit” the suspects in a trial she attended.
The note offered her even more money if she went ahead with the plan to acquit seven people accused of stealing more than $40 million from a program meant to feed children during the pandemic.
The 23-year-old juror, known as Juror 52, said she immediately turned the bag of cash over to police.
“This is completely unimaginable,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in court Monday. ‘This is outrageous behaviour. These are things that happen in mafia movies.”
The juror said a woman left it with her father-in-law on Sunday night with the message that more money would be on the way if she stuck to the plan.
A juror was dismissed after a woman left $120,000 in cash at her home
Juror No. 52 was offered even more money for voting to acquit seven defendants
Defense attorney Andrew Birrell told the judge the bag of cash is “a disturbing and disturbing allegation.”
“Let’s face it, it wasn’t someone outside this room,” Thompson added, noting that the woman who delivered the money was identified as Somali. The seven suspects on trial are East Africans.
Thompson said how a woman, ‘possibly Somali, with an accent, wearing a long black dress’ went to the juror’s home at 8.50pm on Sunday.
The woman gave the juror’s father-in-law a white gift bag and said it was a gift for the juror, using the juror’s first name even though her name not made public.
“The woman told the family member to tell Juror No. 52 not guilty tomorrow and that there would be more of that gift tomorrow,” the affidavit reads.
Inside the gift bag was $120,000 in cash, consisting of rolls of $100, $50 and $20 bills
“After the woman left, the family member looked inside the gift bag and observed that it contained a significant amount of cash,” consisting of rolls of $100, $50 and $20 bills.
When the juror returned and was told about the bag of cash, she called the police.
The money is now in the possession of the FBI.
The seven on trial are the first of 70 suspects expected to appear in court. They are being tried on a total of 41 criminal charges, including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering, in a conspiracy that has cost taxpayers $250 million.
Eighteen others have already pleaded guilty, and authorities said they have recovered about $50 million in one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud cases.
Prosecutors say only a fraction of the money went to low-income children, while the rest was spent on luxury cars, jewelry, travel and property.
During the trial that began in April, defense attorneys questioned the quality of the FBI’s investigation and suggested that this could be a case of record-keeping problems rather than fraud as these defendants tried to keep pace to keep up with the rapidly changing rules for the food aid programme. .
The FBI agents raided the Twin Cities nonprofit Feeding Our Future in January 2022
Feeding Our Future’s office is seen a week after an FBI raid in 2022. The nonprofit would serve meals to children
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel has now sequestered the jury for their deliberations
These seven initial defendants were associated with a restaurant that participated in the food assistance program.
Those still awaiting trial include Feeding our Future founder Aimee Bock, who has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Before the trial could continue with more closing arguments Monday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel questioned the remaining 17 jurors and alternates, asking whether they had been bribed, but none had reported any unauthorized contact.
As a precaution, Brasel decided to lock up the jury for the remainder of the proceedings.
“I don’t do it lightly,” Brasel said. ‘But I want to guarantee a fair trial. You may wonder why this is necessary. It is necessary that you stay away from information.
“The fact that there are only seven defendants and only seven people other than their attorneys who have the information to approach a juror and bribe the juror does not absolve me of the responsibility to protect the community,” he said. the judge.
She did not immediately decide whether to arrest the defendants, but she did order an FBI agent to seize all of the defendants’ cellphones.
“It is highly likely that someone with access to the juror’s personal information conspired with, at a minimum, the woman who delivered the $120,000 bribe,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Travis Wilmer wrote.
Prosecutors say only a fraction of the money earmarked for Feeding Our Future went to low-income children, while the rest was spent on luxury cars, jewelry, travel and property.
Judge Brasel said the juror was “terrified” and “remains at risk of retaliation.”
She also expressed concern that “someone apparently has the addresses of the families of these jurors.”
The aid money that the defendants allegedly misused came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was administered by the Department of Education.
Nonprofits and other partners under the program were required to serve meals to children.
Two of the groups involved, Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition, were small nonprofits before the pandemic, but in 2021 each paid out about $200 million.
Prosecutors allege they created invoices for meals that were never served, ran shell companies, laundered money, indulged in passport fraud and accepted kickbacks.
“The reality is that you have seen overwhelming evidence of the fraud scheme,” said lead attorney Thompson. “Thousands of pages of evidence. False invoices over and over again.’