The Star Tribune reports that, on Monday, Abdirashid Bixi Dool pleaded guilty in Minnesota federal court to defrauding the U.S. government, admitting that only a fraction of the federal funds he was issued were spent on food for children he claimed to serve. “[T]he fraud scheme [ran] out of nonprofits Bilaal Mosque Inc., in Pelican Rapids, and Multicultural Resource Center Inc., in Moorhead,” the Star Tribune reports. “Both meal sites were enrolled under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the $300 million fraud scheme, considered the largest pandemic-era fraud plot in the U.S.”
The report contains this illuminating passage:
According to his plea, Dool, along with two unnamed co-conspirators, collected $1.1 million in federal child nutrition funds through false or inflated claims between March 2021 through February 2022. Dool claimed to serve more than 40,000 meals to children per week at the sites and signed off on the counts for reimbursement. Federal prosecutors allege that Dool claimed to serve 6,000 meals per day at the Bilaal site, a figure that amounts to more than double the number of people living in Pelican Rapids, which last reported a population of 2,586.
How on earth did nobody receiving the invoices notice over 11 months that this guy was claiming to serve 6,000 meals a day in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents? This is a perfect illustration of just how incompetently state officials have handled billions of dollars of taxpayers’ hard earned money.
“Dool’s plea agreement calls for about three years of prison time,” we learn, which works out at ($1.1 million / 3) $366,000 a year. Here is one Minnesotan who doesn’t have to worry about paying for his car tabs.
