Latest news with #SalimSaid
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Yahoo
Feeding Our Future trial: Salim Said denies fraud, defends massive profits
The Brief Co-defendant Salim Said testified in his own defense, the final witness in the nearly six-week trial. He is on trial alongside Aimee Bock. Said co-owned Safari Restaurant, which claimed 5,000 kids served a day for months on end, then opened other meal sites with similar claims. He admitted he was paid millions of dollars, far eclipsing his pre-pandemic income, but claimed it was all legitimate, despite many others pleading guilty. MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Prior to 2020, Salim Said painted a picture of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis doing a thriving business, always packed and producing the same volume of food they claimed to serve kids as part of Feeding Our Future. Under direct questioning by his own defense attorney, it was an attempt to make their meal claims sound normal. The prosecution turned that on its head, comparing the modest income before Feeding Our Future to the millions they took in as part of it. What he said Salim Said admitted he made good money as part of the Federal Child Nutrition Program. He denied it was fraudulent, and denied giving kickbacks. The jury saw videos of packaged meals to support his claims, but did not see evidence of any kids receiving them. "We never give it to the kids," he testified. "It was the parents picking up the food for the kids." Last week, jurors saw a short video that purported to be a line of cars outside the restaurant. Last month, an FBI agent showed surveillance video that showed no traffic. Said claimed it was constant gridlock. "It got so busy," Said testified, "we had to have officers working. Off-duty officers, every day, seven days a week." The other side The government used tax returns to undermine Said's claims that Safari was able to provide that much food because they essentially did the same thing prior to COVID, producing thousands of meals a day for regular customers. Said reported a $30,000 income before the pandemic. Safari Restaurant reported gross revenues of $624,000. How could that be if they were making nearly as many meals? Said claimed a lot of customers paid in cash, which prompted the Assistant U.S. Attorney to question whether he engaged in tax evasion, too. An objection put an end to that line of questioning. "I did get a lot of money from Feeding Our Future," he admitted. But he insisted it was legitimate. He blamed wrongdoing on others, including a former business partner who pled guilty prior to the trial. "I wouldn't have participated if I wouldn't make a profit," he said. What's next Said's cross-examination will continue on Tuesday morning, followed by closing arguments. It's been five weeks since opening statements and six weeks since jury selection. Aimee Bock, the former executive director of Feeding Our Future, spent several days on the stand testifying in her own defense last week.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Yahoo
Feeding Our Future: Trial restrictions tighten after alleged witness tampering attempt
The Brief Sharmake Jama, who pleaded guilty in January, testified about participating in meal fraud at his family's Rochester restaurant. He also told jurors of an attempt by another defendant, who is awaiting trial in April, to talk to him in a courthouse bathroom on Tuesday. The judge issued an order that any defendant in related cases cannot be in the courtroom or even on the same floor. MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Sharmake Jama testified that the claims that he fed nearly 3,000 children per day in 2020 and 2021 were fabricated. He also said invoices showing he purchased food, at times hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, were not true. In fact, he'd not seen them before he was arrested. The invoice claiming he purchased $56,000 dollars worth of milk? He didn't. There's no way he could even store that much, he testified. Big picture view On Tuesday, as Jama sat outside the federal courtroom in Minneapolis, awaiting his turn on the stand, he says he was approached by another man that he recognized, but did not know. Prosecutors said that man is another defendant who will be tried in April and is a relative of Salim Said. Salim Said and Aimee Bock are on trial together for their roles in the $250 million dollar Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. Said ran a number of meal sites and also recruited others to open more meal sites. Bock, who ran Feeding Our Future, is accused of being the ringleader. "He just said, 'Can we talk?'" testified Jama about the man who approached him. "'Talk to you where?' 'Talk to you in the bathroom.'" Jama didn't, but told his lawyer, who then informed the judge. What's next On Wednesday morning, the judge issued an order that any defendant in a Feeding Our Future case can only attend this trial with a 24-hour notice, which is necessary to set up an overflow viewing area on a different floor. And those defendants are no longer allowed on the floor where the current trial is taking place at any time. This comes after an attempt to bribe a juror in a Feeding Our Future trial of seven defendants in 2024. That juror promptly reported it to the court. READ MORE: Feeding our Future: Juror bribery attempt leads to guilty plea Dig deeper Also on Wednesday, two witnesses from Willmar, who testified about a downtown meal site that Salim Said was a part of. One of them, who works at an insurance agency next door, said she never saw lines of kids or increased traffic. "It would have been noticeable," she testified. The site claimed to be feeding up to 3,000 kids every day, both breakfast and lunch. "I just didn't see that kind of activity."
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Yahoo
Feeding Our Future trial: FBI surveillance video does not show 1000s of meals served
The Brief FBI installed 12 cameras watching sites claiming to serve thousands of meals to children. One that watched the former Safari Restaurant showed an average of 40 people per day over six weeks. Safari's former co-owner, Salim Said, is on trial alongside Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock. MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - In December 2021, the FBI put up 12 surveillance cameras on the Feeding Our Future sites that were claiming the highest number of meals being served to children during the COVID-19 pandemic. "We were trying to confirm what the investigation was telling us," testified an FBI agent who was on the stand all day on the third day of the trial of Aimee Bock and Salim Said. "What was the investigation telling you? That it wouldn't be possible to feed this many children." What we know Jurors were shown dozens of documents in this third day of the trial of Aimee Bock and Salim Said, alleged co-conspirators in the $250 million dollar federal meal fraud. Jurors saw meal counts and invoices claiming that Safari served between 4,000 and 6,000 meals a day in 2020 and 2021. Its total claim in that time was 3.9 million meals served and its total take was over $12 million. But the video told a different story. An average of 40 people per day came and went from Safari, co-owned by Said, during the six weeks it was surveilled. Occasionally there would be some meal boxes loaded into vehicles, but "definitely not 6,000" the agent testified. They also showed video from a deli in St. Paul, where Salim Said claimed to serve 1,800 meals per day. The average was 23 people coming and going each day. The other side Aimee Bock's defense attorney maintains she knew nothing about the fraud, that she was victim of others lying to her. He pushed the agent about not surveilling the back entrance to Safari, that it was possible meals were loaded into a delivery truck they could not see. The agent pushed back, saying 6,000 meals would add congestion regardless if there were trucks involved. "To that volume, I would say it would not make any sense." What's next The jury will continue to be deluged with paperwork, since 270 boxes of documents were seized from the Feeding Our Future office alone. The prosecution is trying to show that the high meal claims were not just for a few weeks, but for months on end, and that requires a tedious process of showing all these documents to the jury. They're also seeing dozens of emails, many of them with Aimee Bock's name on them, to prove she was intimately involved in the fraud. The jury already heard from one woman who pled guilty to operating a fraudulent meal operation in Faribault, who said Aimee Bock knew what was going on. With a long list of guilty pleas, many more of those meal site operators who've already admitted to fraud are still expected to testify.
