Minnesota
Minnesota fraud scandal: Sixth family member who met with AG Ellison set to plead guilty
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Yet another member of a family within Minnesota’s Somali community is expected to plead guilty Thursday in the massive fraud scandal that has drawn national attention and prompted criticism of Attorney General Keith Ellison over a meeting he held with members of the family in question.
Gandi Mohamed, 45, is expected to either plead guilty at a change of plea hearing scheduled for Thursday or choose to enter a plea of no contest, which would allow him to accept conviction and be sentenced without admitting guilt, according to court records.
Mohamed is the sixth member of his family who would be pleading guilty in the scheme prosecutors say fraudulently claimed to be serving meals while instead pocketing $14 million from the federal child nutrition program, Fox 9 Minneapolis reported.
Center of the American Experiment policy fellow Bill Glahn told Fox News Digital that “it’s good that he and his co-conspirators have all been convicted in the case, however, a courtroom trial would have been a useful exercise to show the public the scope and scale of the fraud.”
TOM EMMER CALLS FOR TIM WALZ, KEITH ELLISON TO ‘SERVE JAIL TIME’ IF FRAUD COVERUP ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and AG Keith Ellison will testify before Congress on March 4. (Mandel Ngan/AFP; Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The Mohamed family was present at the now infamous 2021 meeting between Ellison and members of the Somali community where would-be fraudsters could be heard asking the state’s attorney general to help them secure more funding, before the conversation turned to campaign donations.
“The only way that we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena. Putting our votes where it needs to be. But most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place. And supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests,” one of the Somali community members says in the recording.
“That’s right,” Ellison responds.
JOSH HAWLEY STANDS BY ACCUSATIONS AFTER FIERY SENATE HEARING CLASH WITH MINNESOTA AG ELLISON
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in the U.S. Capitol Building on March 4, 2026, in Washington, D.C. The committee held the hearing to examine the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ellison has denied any wrongdoing regarding the recording, saying he was completely unaware of the fraudsters’ crimes at the time of the meeting. The meeting occurred before any convictions in the case and before President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice had indicted anyone.
“I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn’t know and some turned out to have done bad things. I did nothing for them and took nothing from them,” Ellison wrote in an April 2025 op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Following that meeting, Gandi gave the maximum $2,500 campaign donation to Ellison that the attorney general returned to the Department of Justice in 2025.
TRUMP ADMIN SCORES MINNESOTA COURT WIN IN MEDICAID FRAUD CRACKDOWN
“Our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, is not only looking the other way but doing so after taking donations from these very fraudsters,” Republican Dalia al-Aqidi who is running for Congress in Minneapolis against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told Fox News Digital. “This is a betrayal of every Minnesotan who trusted him with that office.”
Al-Aqidi explained that the voters in her district are “furious” about the fraud scandal.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“Which is why I’ve rolled out a five-point plan to prevent fraud before it starts,” al-Aqidi said. “This isn’t just about taxpayers, it’s about people who really need food and housing. Preventing fraud isn’t complicated, it just takes the political will to stop this type of abuse. It’s clear that this scheme is being used to buy votes, and that has to stop.”
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Alexis McAdams contributed to this report.
Minnesota
Rosemount vs. Champlin Park: Live Score Updates of 2026 Minnesota High School Baseball Class 4A State Championship
MINNEAPOLIS — The No. 2 Champlin Park Rebels (22-6) play the No. 4 Rosemount Irish (24-5) in the Minnesota high school baseball Class 4A state championship game on Monday at Target Field.
Neither team has won a baseball state championship in its history.
The Rebels have won both state championship games by one run. They defeated No. 7 Andover 3-2 in the quarterfinal before outlasting Edina 8-7 in extra innings in the semifinal. The Rebels are led by senior catcher Cal Ockuly, who was scheduled to be in San Diego on Monday for Marine Corps training, but he is allowed to play.
Rosemount won its two state championship games via blowout. They defeated No. 5 Monticello 11-2 in the quarterfinal, and they defeated No. 1 Farmington 11-1 in the semifinal. The Irish scored 12 runs the section final, so they’ve scored 34 runs in the past three games.
Junior outfielder Oliver Anderson had four RBIs in the semifinal win against Farmington.
High School On SI will have half-inning recaps and score updates throughout the game.
Rosemount vs. Champlin Park: Live Score Updates of 2026 Minnesota High School Baseball Class 4A State Championship
Refresh for the latest update.
Live score: Rosemount 0, Champlin Park 0 — Top 2nd
SECOND INNING
FIRST INNING — Champlin Park 0, Rosemount 0
Senior Evan Boll is pitching for Rosemount to begin the game.
Rosemount gets a runner two second base with two outs, but Vendel gets a strikeout for the final out.
Champlin Park’s Donovan Vendel throws the first pitch of the game, and we’re underway after a long rain delay.
More from High School On SI
Follow
Minnesota
Construction starts on Highway 65 in Blaine, with work set to wrap in 2030
Preliminary work began Monday on a multiyear construction project to improve a Twin Cities highway considered one of the most dangerous roads in Minnesota.
Crews are starting construction on Highway 65 between 121st Avenue/Paul Parkway and 97th Avenue in Blaine. The goal is to transform the highway into a freeway through the city, improving travel time and reducing crashes, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Right now, Highway 65 is a 55-mph road with lights every quarter to half-mile. The city says 10 of the state’s 31 most dangerous intersections are on Highway 65. Approximately 60,000 drivers use the highway every day.
This summer, crews will work to widen it to carry traffic during construction, build crossovers to switch traffic and keep it moving during work at intersections, work on frontage and backage roads and install storm sewer pipes for drainage along the highway. As a result, some side streets will be temporarily closed and detoured.
The project will elevate the highway, converting existing intersections at 99th Avenue, 109th Avenue and 117th Avenue into interchanges.
A pedestrian bridge will be built across the freeway between 113th and 114th avenues, rerouting some existing local streets and driveway connections using frontage and backage roads between 97th and 125th avenues. Existing sidewalks will also be reconstructed to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
The project is expected to cost $195 million, with construction lasting through summer 2030.
Minnesota
Idaho, Minnesota universities stonewall public records requests for controversial course syllabi | The College Fix
Key Takeaways
- The University of Idaho and University of Minnesota denied requests for course syllabi from the American Accountability Foundation, claiming syllabi are protected as intellectual property or trade secrets under state laws.
- The AAF argued that the universities’ justifications for withholding the syllabi misinterpret state laws and the definition of trade secrets, which require economic value and reasonable secrecy efforts.
- Both universities offered limited alternatives, such as in-person inspection of the documents, which the AAF deemed insufficient based on previous court rulings affirming the public’s right to access such records.
The University of Idaho and the University of Minnesota refused to provide class syllabi to a conservative research group that submitted requests under the respective states’ public records laws.
In the case of UI, the American Accountability Foundation requested syllabi for Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and four Ecology of Health & Medicine–Foundations courses. In its demand letter to the university, AAF said the courses were “related to how the University of Idaho has changed its practices to comply with Idaho anti-DEI laws.”
The university “denied the request with respect to the syllabi on the grounds that they are ‘trade secrets’ exempt from disclosure under the Idaho Public Records Act. The university is wrong,” the demand letter to the school’s chief compliance officer states.
UI spokesperson Jodi Walker told The College Fix that the university’s “Board of Regents has outlined in policy that syllabi are intellectual property.”
“U of I policy is written to follow that state policy. Therefore, we do believe syllabi are protected under patent, trademark, copyright or other laws and are not subject to disclosure as a public record,” she said.
However, the foundation urged the school to pay closer attention to the state law’s definition of a trade secret, which requires it to derive “independent economic value” from “not being readily ascertainable by proper means” and to be protected by reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.
The foundation also requested syllabi copies for University of Minnesota’s courses of Human Sexuality; Justice, Law, and Medicine; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health; and Sexual and Gender Health in Clinical Practice.
According to the foundation’s demand letter to UMN, the school refused the request “because the syllabi ‘are copyrighted and protected intellectual property.’”
However, it did offer to “‘provide [AAF] with an opportunity to inspect the data in-person.’”
The research group called this response “inadequate.”
It pointed to a Minnesota Court of Appeals case in which the State Colleges and Universities system was barred from denying a public records request for syllabi solely on copyright grounds. In that case, the system had similarly “offered to allow the plaintiff to ‘inspect’ the syllabi in person—a mirror of [UMN’s] response.”
The court “breezily rejected that unsupported argument,” the foundation noted.
The College Fix reached out to the University of Minnesota’s media relations team twice to ask the university’s thoughts on the relation between this case and their own, but received no response.
Matt Ehling, treasurer for Minnesotans for Open Government, told The College Fix in an interview that UMN’s offer for inspection but refusal to copy is “frustrating” and “suspect” since the university owns the copyright.
Ehling said that while there would have been some merit to the university’s claim if the copyright were owned by another, there is no excuse for the current state of affairs.
Ehling said “they absolutely have the right to waive their copyright claim to produce copies of their own material.”
He also pointed to a 1995 opinion from the Minnesota Attorney General, which states that a department cannot use copyright as a reason to block the public’s right to inspect and copy public records “at reasonable times and places” under Minnesota law.
The foundation gave both universities a hard deadline of June 12 to provide the requested documents. If the universities persist “in violating [their] statutory obligations” under the states’ respective laws,” the foundation reserves its rights to seek all appropriate relief [in] court,” the group wrote.
MORE: ‘BIPOC’ language scrubbed from geoscience fellowship after College Fix questions
-
West Virginia7 minutes agoCommentary: As Mountaineers ready for elimination game, harping on errors does no good – WV MetroNews
-
Wyoming10 minutes agoOld Wyoming Missile Silos Used For Train Restorations
-
Crypto15 minutes agoBinance Research: April DeFi Exploits Triggered $13 Billion in Outflows
-
Finance22 minutes agoNew global framework launched to help financial firms make transition plans
-
Fitness25 minutes agoUS Health Clubs and Studios to Offer Free Memberships for Military Recruits Under New Service Ready Program – Health & Fitness Association
-
Movie Reviews37 minutes agoReview | Dog Day Evening: Kafkaesque comedy reflects on a Hong Kong hostage incident
-
World45 minutes ago
Author Amy Griffin sues woman who alleged she stole her stories of sexual abuse in memoir ‘The Tell’
-
News52 minutes agoVideo: What We Learned About Jeffrey Epstein’s Death