Star Tribune
Minneapolis woman pleads guilty for role in Feeding Our Future scheme
A Minneapolis woman pleaded guilty on Friday to wire fraud for her role in the Feeding Our Future scheme, and admitted to running a business that stole millions from the government by falsely inflating the number of meals it claimed to serve to children.
Khadra Abdi, 42, admitted in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis that she stole more than $3.4 million in fraud money from the federal government as part of the Feeding Our Future scheme between 2020 and 2022. As part of her plea agreement, Abdi’s other charges related to wire fraud and money laundering will be dismissed at sentencing.
Abdi operated a Hopkins-based business called Shafi’s Tutoring and Homework Help Center, which was created prior to the pandemic and the Feeding Our Future scheme. In April 2020 Abdi signed a contract with Aimee Bock, the executive director of Feeding Our Future, for Shafi’s Tutoring to serve as a site to feed low-income children under the Federal Child Nutrition Program.
The tutoring business claimed to have served 1.1 million meals to children, federal charges say. Instead, only a “small fraction” of those reported meals were served, and the business falsely-inflated its meal number reports, prosecutors said.
Abdi gave some of the $3.4 million in fraud money to other members of the scheme, and used at least $202,000 to pay herself, charges say. Some of the funds allegedly went to personal spending for credit card and loan payments, cable TV, clothing and nail salon services.
Abdi admitted that she purchased two vehicles partially with fraud money. She agreed to forfeit properties and vehicles she bought with fraud money, and she is required to pay back the $3.4 million she received as restitution.
Asked by U.S. Assistant Attorney Matthew Ebert if her co-defendant Abdulkadir Awale operated as a fraudulent food vendor who did not provide food to Shafi’s Tutoring as reported on invoices, Abdi initially pushed back.
“Food was served at the site,” Abdi said through a Somali interpreter. “I cannot speak to the invoices.”
Star Tribune
St. Cloud man gets life in prison for fatally shooting co-worker he became ‘infatuated with’
FOLEY — A Benton County judge on Friday sentenced a 38-year-old St. Cloud man to life in prison for fatally shooting a woman outside her workplace in 2022 after she repeatedly rebuffed his advances.
In August, a jury found Michael J. Carpenter guilty on one count of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of second-degree murder, both felonies, in the homicide of 28-year-old Nicole M. Hammond of St. Cloud.
Hammond, the youngest of five siblings who loved animals and nature, was fatally shot by Carpenter the morning of Oct. 24, 2022 in the parking lot of Dubow Textile, the company in St. Cloud where they both worked.
“Our world has been shattered,” Nicole’s sister, Amy Hammond, said Friday during the sentencing hearing that was attended by about three dozen people, many of whom wore shirts adorned with Nicole’s picture. The back of the shirts, designed for a memorial walk that raised awareness for domestic violence, stated, “No Means No.”
Carpenter planned Hammond’s murder after becoming “infatuated with her,” said Erin Eldridge, a prosecuting attorney from the state Attorney General’s Office, during the sentencing.
As co-workers, Carpenter and Hammond became friends in summer 2022 but he then developed deeper feelings that she didn’t share, Eldridge said. The night before Carpenter shot Hammond, she had texted him saying she did not want to be touched by him and told him not to make things uncomfortable at work, documents state.
“He stewed about it all night,” Eldridge said. Carpenter then drove to work, walked up to Hammond in the parking lot and shot her in the neck with a 9-millimieter pistol.
“The defendant saw those last breaths and he took off,” Eldridge said. “[He] left her there to die.”
Two people were injured when a small plane crashed in a Shakopee park Friday afternoon.
City officials said the crash happened inside Scenic Heights Park about 12:30 p.m., and two people who had been aboard the aircraft were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. The names of the people on board the plane and their medical conditions weren’t immediately available.
“Thankfully, the crash happened far away from the playground and the fitness court and the amenities of the park,” so no one else was injured, said Amanda McKnight, a spokesperson for Shakopee.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are taking over the investigation into what caused the twin-engine Piper PA-44 to crash.
The safety board said in a statement that “preliminary information available is the plane crashed in a field under unknown circumstances” and the wreckage will be taken offsite for further investigation. The FAA said its preliminary report should be available in the coming days.
An Iowa man visiting St. Paul was “targeted and executed” following a night out with friends earlier this week, according to murder charges filed against his alleged killer.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged 22-year-old Kueth Chuol Ngut with two counts of second-degree murder. His appeared in court Friday and is scheduled to reappear on Oct. 24. Judge Kelly Olmstead set bail at $3 million.
On Friday the St. Paul Police Department identified the victim as Lul Dak Chak, 32, of Ames, Iowa, who bowled with friends sometime before being gunned down. According to charging documents, Ngut and another suspect planned to kill Chak.
Just past midnight on Sept. 17, a caller reported hearing gunshots and someone lying on the ground the parking lot of an apartment building at 1222 University Avenue West. Police found Chak there with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, neck and face. He was unconscious and not breathing. A cell phone, broken necklace and 19 bullet casings were nearby.
Medics pronounced him dead at the scene, and an autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner confirmed that Chak died from nine gunshot wounds.
Chak’s cousin witnessed the shooting, telling police that they were smoking outside the apartment complex after returning from a birthday party. Chak told her he was buying narcotics. Moments later, a man exited a Subaru parked in the lot and began shooting at them. The cousin dropped to the ground and said that Chak leaped in front to protect her.
A friend who also witnessed the shooting said the three were outside for a smoke when a person wearing all black got out of the front passenger seat of a vehicle and shot at them. They also claimed that the car was in the lot with its headlights off before shots rang.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage which showed the Subaru driving in the area 20 minutes before the shooting, moving to different spots in the parking lot. When Chak walked outside, two peopled got out of the car and shot at him. He fell to the ground.
