Five Charged with Juror Bribe Plot in Covid Fraud Trial; Five People Charged with Attempting to Bribe Minnesota Juror by Dumping $120K in a Bag On Her Doorstep: Feds , and other C-Virus related stories

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Five charged with juror bribe plot in Covid fraud trial:

Five people have been charged with offering a $120,000 (£94,000) cash bribe to a juror to thwart a conviction in a US pandemic fraud trial.

The unnamed 23-year-old juror reported that she had received a gift bag filled with cash in the closing days of the federal criminal trial in Minneapolis.

"This is stuff that happens in mob movies," Assistant US Attorney Joseph Thompson said earlier this month after the alleged scheme emerged.

Prosecutors have charged 70 people with stealing $250m from federal food programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among the five charged with bribery are three who stood trial for providing fake names of non-existent children they were claiming to feed and creating a fraudulent paper trail in order to pocket millions of dollars.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali have been charged with conspiracy to bribe a juror, bribery of a juror and corruptly influencing a juror.

At a news conference on Wednesday, US Attorney Andrew Luger called the alleged bribery attempt a "chilling attack on our justice system", adding that he was grateful the juror "could not be bought".

Prosecutors say the group targeted the woman because she was the youngest on the panel and "they believed her to be the only juror of colour". --->READ MORE HERE

Five people charged with attempting to bribe Minnesota juror by dumping $120K in a bag on her doorstep: feds

Five people were charged on Wednesday for allegedly trying to bribe a Minnesota juror in one of the nation’s largest COVID-19-related fraud cases — by dumping a “present” of $120,000 at her doorstep.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali, allegedly teamed up to bribe one of the jurors hearing the $250 million fraud trial against three of them.

Minnesota US Attorney Andrew Luger described the bribery plot as “something out of a mob movie,” where the five people allegedly tracked down the juror and left $120,000 at her house inside a Hallmark gift bag, with a promise of more to come if she voted to acquit.

Abdiaziz, Said and Nur were among seven defendants, all of whom are of East African descent, who were tried for stealing more than $250 million from a COVID-19 relief program that was supposed to feed children during the pandemic.

Investigators alleged that during the trial, Abdulkarim and Ali joined the three defendants to track down the Minneapolis home of “Juror #52” on the night before the fraud case was sent to the jury in early June.

Ali, who flew in from Seattle, was allegedly recruited by Nur and sent to the house to present the bribe, but she was met with a relative instead.

“The woman told the relative to tell Juror #52 to say not guilty tomorrow and there would be more of that present tomorrow,” an FBI agent said in an affidavit. --->READ MORE HERE

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