Woman sentenced to prison, ordered to pay $5M restitution for role in Feeding our Future fraud scheme

CBS News

23-05-2025

A Minneapolis woman has been sentenced by a federal judge to over four years in prison and ordered to pay just over $5 million in restitution for her role in the largest pandemic fraud case in the country.
Sahra Nur, 63, was sentenced to four years and four months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, according to a release Thursday from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota.
As the owner of S and S Catering Inc., Nur enrolled her business in the Federal Child Nutrition Program as a food distribution site under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.
Between December 2020 and April 2021, Nur said S and S catering served over 1.2 million meals to children, and sites that used the business as a vendor reported serving more than 8 million meals through the federal program. S and S Catering received more than $10 million in payments from the companies they reportedly served food to, and over $16 million in reimbursements from Feeding Our Future, according to the attorney's office.
Nur misappropriated the funds for her benefit, including commercial real estate, federal officials say.
She pleaded guilty in September 2023 to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering, after being charged in 2022 with 46 other people in connection with the fraud.
The judge who sentenced Nur called the loss amount "staggering" and said that "public trust in government programs has significant decreased" as a result of her fraud.
In April, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was grilled by members of the House Fraud Committee over a 2021 meeting he had with business owners later convicted in the Feeding Our Future fraud case.
During the 2021 meeting, which was secretly recorded, the defendants are heard complaining about state agencies and discussing possible campaign contributions.
Note: The video above originally aired April 29, 2025.