In two separate courtroom trials coming up, two fraud defendants are set to face juries.
The first jury trial began yesterday (Sept. 25) at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul, before district Judge Susan Richard Nelson. The defendant, Sharmaine Meadows, was orignally accused in three felony fraud counts related to Medicaid’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS). Earlier this month, two additional counts were added.
She was indicted back in May and a September trial should be considered lightning speed for federal court proceedings. The case involves some $4 million billed to Medicaid.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday morning and run through the end of the week.
The second trial is set to begin Monday, October 5 and is scheduled to run for two-and-a-half weeks through October 20. Muna Wais Fidhin, 45, is defendant No. 75 in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, indicted just over one year ago (September 2025) on ten felony counts of wire fraud and money laundering.
She operated a food distribution site under her for-profit M5 Cafe under the sponsorship of the nonprofit feeding Our Future. Later she switched to her nonprofit M5 Care under the competing Partners in Nutrition (PIN) nonprofit free-food network. Prosecutors say she received $656,000 from the free-food program.
Prosecution exhibits and pre-trial filings link Fidhin to bribes paid to Feeding staffer Abdikerm Eidleh (defendant No. 2), a recently-returned international fugitive.
Her jury trial will be held in front of Minneapolis-based district Judge Nancy Brasel, who handled the two previous Feeding courtroom trials.
I first mentioned Fidhin’s M5 operation in passing back in March 2022, as part of a tour of suspected fraud sites located in Burnsville. She is mentioned (by initials) as an unindicted co-conspirator in the February 2024 indictment of Hoda Abdi, defendant No. 70 (p. 5, paragraph 13).
Abdi pled guilty in her case in April 2024, but has yet to be sentenced.
