Which site operators pleaded guilty and what sentences were imposed across the Feeding Our Future prosecutions?
Executive summary
The prosecutions of Feeding Our Future have produced dozens of guilty pleas from people who operated or fronted meal sites, with punishments ranging from months-long recommended federal sentences to multi-year prison terms and large restitution orders; reporting shows at least several named site operators pleaded guilty and received or agreed to terms, while many others remain pending or were not individually sentenced in the public record cited here [1] [2]. This article catalogs named site operators who pleaded guilty and summarizes the sentences imposed or the sentencing ranges reported, and it notes where court outcomes or sentence details are not available in the supplied reporting [3] [4].
1. Najmo M. Ahmed — guilty plea, multi‑year sentence recommendation and restitution
Najmo M. Ahmed, who helped run Evergreen Grocery & Deli as a Feeding Our Future food distribution site, pleaded guilty and prosecutors agreed to a recommended prison sentence in the roughly 33–41 month range along with about $3 million in restitution and forfeiture of an SUV bought with program dollars, according to federal filings reported by the IRS and local outlets [4] [3].
2. Sharon Ross — guilty plea and 42‑month sentence
Sharon Ross, former executive director of the House of Refuge food shelf who had enrolled her program as a Feeding Our Future site, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison (42 months), as reported in Sahan Journal’s sentencing tracker and local reporting [2].
3. Khadra Abdi and Hoda Ali Abdi — guilty pleas, prosecutors’ recommended ranges and unresolved sentence reporting
Khadra Abdi, who ran the Shafi’i Tutoring & Homework Help Center as a Feeding Our Future food site, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and agreed with prosecutors to a recommended sentencing range of about 2.25 to 2.75 years in prison, per reporting on plea agreements [3]. Hoda Ali Abdi, owner of Alif Halal LLC grocery, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after enrolling her store as a site, but publicly reported sources in this collection document her plea without a clear published sentence at the time of those stories [3] [5].
4. Guhaad Said and other site operators with multi‑year recommendations
Guhaad Said, operator of Advance Youth Athletic Development — a site prosecutors say claimed to serve thousands of meals daily — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and agreed to a proposed sentence of roughly four to five years, according to reporting that summarized plea agreements [3]. Several other named site-related defendants have plea deals with wide sentencing ranges reported in court filings; for example, one defendant identified as “Abdulkadir” pleaded guilty and faced a guideline range of roughly 9–11 years while accepting responsibility for tens of millions in restitution in documents summarized by the Star Tribune [6].
5. Sentenced site operators with larger restitution orders — Sahra Nur and Mohamed Ismail
Some site operators received multi‑year terms coupled with large restitution orders: Sahra Nur pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $5 million in program funds, was ordered to pay that restitution and was later sentenced to four years and three months in prison [2], while Mohamed Ismail — identified in aggregated reporting on the case — received a 12‑year sentence and was ordered to pay more than $47 million in restitution as part of wider prosecutions tied to the scheme [7].
6. Scale, ongoing pleas and reporting gaps
By the time of the trial and press coverage cited here, reporting counted roughly 30–37 defendants who had pleaded guilty across the sprawling case and noted that dozens more remained charged or were being tried; multiple additional guilty pleas continued into 2025 and 2025–2026 reporting shows more pleas through 2025 and 2026 filings [1] [8] [9]. While many plea agreements and sentencing recommendations are public, several site operators’ exact sentences or restitution totals were not detailed in the supplied sources, and prosecutions have continued to produce new pleas, convictions and asset‑seizure orders after the items summarized above [5] [10].
7. What this list does and does not show
The named examples above are drawn from the publicly reported pleas and sentences in the sources provided; they illustrate a pattern of federal plea agreements that impose multi‑year prison recommendations and substantial restitution for site operators who admitted fabricating attendance, invoices or meal counts [3] [4] [2]. Where the supplied reporting does not specify a final sentence for a pleaded‑guilty site operator, this account does not invent outcomes — those particulars either remained pending at the time of the cited stories or were reported without sentencing detail [3] [5].