Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and his sentence also reflected an attempt to tamper with a cooperating witness.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — A Lakeville man was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, with the punishment also reflecting his attempt to interfere with a cooperating witness before testimony in a related federal trial.
U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel sentenced Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir, 34, on Aug. 18. Abshir pleaded guilty to wire fraud on March 7, 2025, after prosecutors said he helped submit fraudulent claims through a child nutrition site in Mankato during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota said Abshir is the 23rd defendant to be sentenced in the broader Feeding Our Future case, which federal prosecutors have described as a $250 million fraud scheme involving money intended for federally funded child nutrition programs.
According to federal court records described by prosecutors, Abshir operated Stigma-Free Mankato under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said the site claimed to serve 3,000 children each day, seven days a week, from J’s Sambusa, a small restaurant in North Mankato. Between November 2020 and November 2021, Abshir and his co-conspirators falsely claimed that the site had served about 1.6 million meals to children.
Federal prosecutors said the operation relied on false meal counts, invoices and attendance rosters to obtain reimbursement money. Stigma-Free Mankato received more than $5.4 million from Feeding Our Future based on fraudulent claims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Abshir also created Horseed Management, which was presented as a food vendor for the Mankato site. Prosecutors said millions of dollars were transferred from that company to Abshir and other participants rather than being used to provide the meals claimed in reimbursement submissions.
Abshir also transferred proceeds to Calikamin Enterprise, another company he created, prosecutors said. Federal authorities said he used fraud proceeds to buy a 2021 Range Rover that was later seized for forfeiture. Prosecutors further said Abshir paid more than $100,000 in bribes and kickbacks to Abdikerm Eidleh, who worked for Feeding Our Future, in exchange for facilitating the Mankato site’s participation in the federal nutrition program. Feeding Our Future received nearly $420,000 in administrative fees connected to its sponsorship of the site, according to court documents cited by prosecutors.
The sentence also accounted for conduct that occurred Feb. 18, 2025, during the federal trial of Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and co-defendant Salim Said. Prosecutors said Abshir approached a cooperating witness outside a courtroom in the federal courthouse in Minneapolis shortly before the witness was scheduled to testify. After learning the witness would testify that day, Abshir asked the person to go with him to a bathroom to talk. Abshir later acknowledged in his guilty plea that an obstruction-of-justice enhancement would apply under federal sentencing guidelines because of the attempted witness tampering.
U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said the sentence addressed both the misuse of taxpayer money and efforts to interfere with the judicial process. “Justice is not for sale,” Rosen said in announcing the sentence. FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson said attempts to tamper with witnesses threaten the integrity of the courts by interfering with the effort to establish facts through testimony.
The Feeding Our Future prosecutions grew from allegations that defendants exploited changes to federal child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those programs reimbursed organizations for meals served to children. Federal authorities alleged that numerous participants submitted inflated or fabricated claims, moved proceeds through businesses and other entities, and spent money on purchases unrelated to feeding children. Individual defendants have faced separate charges, pleas, trials and sentencing proceedings based on their conduct in the scheme.
Abshir was initially among the defendants charged by federal prosecutors in September 2022. His later guilty plea resolved the wire fraud charge against him and incorporated the obstruction enhancement tied to the witness incident. The investigation was conducted by the FBI with assistance from IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebecca E. Kline and Matthew C. Murphy prosecuted the sentencing case.
Abshir’s 78-month prison term is the latest sentence in the continuing Feeding Our Future prosecutions. Other defendants remain at different stages of the federal court process, including sentencing proceedings stemming from guilty pleas and convictions in the wide-ranging investigation.
Author note: Last updated August 21, 2026.