Tuesday January 17, 2023
Minneapolis (HOL) - Minnesota Attorney General's office has filed a lawsuit against an Edina nonprofit that served as a site for the infamous Feeding Our Future scandal.
Attorney General Keith Ellison filed the lawsuit last week in Hennepin County District Court after finding that the ThinkTechAct Foundation and three of its leaders "ran a sham nonprofit, misused nonprofit funds, and violated numerous other governance requirements under Minnesota charities laws."
ThinkTechAct's founder Mahad Ibrahim of Lewis Center, Ohio; board member Abdiaziz Shafii Farah of Savage and its executive director Bianca Scott of St. Paul have all been named in the lawsuit.
"It is wrong that ThinkTechAct's leaders took advantage of funds meant to help children," Ellison said. "My office launched this investigation and filed this lawsuit because we cannot allow nonprofits to be hijacked to line the pockets of their directors and officers. The overwhelming majority of Minnesota's nonprofit organizations do vital work supporting our communities, but sham nonprofits and their leaders who abuse the public trust must be held accountable."
Ibrahim and Farah are among the 50 defendants charged or indicted in the Feeding Our Future case, which federal prosecutors say involves more than $250 million in fraud - the largest pandemic-related fraud investigation in the country and one of the largest federal fraud cases in state history. They have both pleaded not guilty.
Farah and another man, Mohamed Jama Ismail, were charged with passport fraud while under federal investigation into their nonprofit. Authorities said they lied to the U.S. State Department, claiming they'd lost their passports after FBI agents seized the travel documents while executing search warrants in January.
The lawsuit is the first legal action taken by the state of Minnesota against one of the Feeding Out Future distribution sites since the federal investigation began over a year ago. FBI agents raided ThinkTechAct's Edina offices nearly a year ago as they investigated Feeding Our Future and its contractors.
According to the Attorney General's Office, ThinkTechAct, which also operated as Mind Foundry Learning Foundation, created dozens of food sites statewide to distribute meals to kids. Federal prosecutors said ThinkTechAct inflated meal counts to reimburse organizers more than $18 million.
The lawsuits and indictments allege that Ibrahim misused the federal money, spending nearly $15 million of at least $21.8 million of the nonprofit's money on entities he owned or co-owned with Farah. During the alleged scheme, one of Farah's entities paid Ibrahim nearly $850,000 for "consulting."
The Attorney General said two people listed as board members at ThinkTechAct told his office they were unaware of their position.