Feeding Our Future Continuing Fallout: A Guilty Plea, More Indictments, and New Counterclaims

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota announced last month that the executive director of House of Refuge Twin Cities pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the $250 million fraud scheme centering on the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. The charge related to her redirection of millions of dollars in federal funds to pay personal expenses and family members. According to the press release, she is the seventeenth defendant to plead guilty to charges arising from this fraud scheme. Coverage: CBS NewsSahan JournalStar Tribune.

And she is unlikely to be the last, as this week the same U.S. Attorney office announced federal criminal charges against 10 additional defendants arising from the same fraud (on top of approximately 60 already charged). Those defendants included six members from the same family who allegedly used a variety of legal entities to receive and launder the stolen federal funds, as well as four others who allegedly falsely claimed to have provided meals to children. Coverage: MPR News.

Not all the action is on the government’s side, however. According to an MPR News article, the founder of Feeding Our Future and alleged leader of the fraud conspiracy is pushing back. She is asserting that Minnesota Department of Education officials who oversaw the hunger relief funds intentionally mislabeled document and used burner phones to improperly thwart a 2020 lawsuit brought by the nonprofit challenging the Department’s treatment of Feeding Our Future. Her attorney stated that she plans to raise these allegations as part of her defense against federal wire fraud and bribery charges.

Lloyd Mayer