Gandi Mohamed, 45, is expected to plead guilty or no contest at a change-of-plea hearing scheduled for Thursday, making him the sixth member of his family to accept responsibility in a scheme that prosecutors say siphoned $14 million from the federal child nutrition program. Court records confirm the hearing, and the plea would close another chapter in a fraud scandal that has drawn Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and former Governor Tim Walz into a widening political firestorm.
The case centers on claims that Mohamed and his co-conspirators fraudulently reported serving meals to children while pocketing the federal dollars instead. That $14 million figure comes from prosecutors, and it sits inside a broader pattern of alleged fraud in Minnesota social services that has attracted congressional scrutiny and sharp questions about who in state government knew what, and when.
Fox News Digital reported that Mohamed's expected plea follows guilty pleas from five other members of his family. Fox 9 Minneapolis confirmed that Mohamed would be the sixth family member to plead guilty in the scheme. The steady procession of guilty pleas has turned the Mohamed family case into a symbol of the broader Minnesota fraud problem, and of the political entanglements surrounding it.
At the center of the political fallout is a 2021 meeting between Ellison and members of the Somali community. Members of the Mohamed family were present. A recording from that meeting captured a Somali community member telling Ellison that "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."
Ellison's response on the recording: "That's right."
The meeting took place before President Joe Biden's Department of Justice had indicted anyone in the fraud scheme. Ellison has denied any wrongdoing, saying he was completely unaware of the fraudsters' crimes at the time. In an April 2025 op-ed published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Ellison addressed the controversy. He told Fox News Digital directly:
"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."
But the facts around that defense have grown uncomfortable. Gandi Mohamed gave the maximum $2,500 campaign donation to Ellison. That donation was returned, not to Mohamed, but to the Department of Justice, in 2025. The timeline matters: money flowed from a man now pleading guilty in a federal fraud case to the state's top law enforcement officer, and it took years for that money to land back where it belonged.
As a convicted fraudster in the same scandal has alleged, questions about what Ellison and Walz knew have persisted well beyond the initial indictments.
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital that while the guilty pleas are welcome, they don't go far enough to expose the full scope of the problem:
"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."
Glahn's point deserves attention. Plea deals resolve cases efficiently, but they also keep evidence out of public view. When the fraud in question involves federal tax dollars meant to feed children, the public has a legitimate interest in seeing the full record laid bare. A trial would have forced prosecutors to present their evidence in open court. Plea after plea, that window closes a little more.
Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minneapolis against Rep. Ilhan Omar, offered a sharper critique. She told Fox News Digital that Ellison's conduct amounted to a failure of his sworn duty:
"Our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, is not only looking the other way but doing so after taking donations from these very fraudsters. This is a betrayal of every Minnesotan who trusted him with that office."
Al-Aqidi said voters in her district are "furious" and that she has rolled out a five-point plan to prevent fraud before it starts. She framed the issue not just as a matter of fiscal accountability but as one that directly harms the vulnerable populations these programs are supposed to serve:
"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."
That last charge, that fraud dollars were functionally buying political influence, goes to the heart of why the 2021 meeting recording and the campaign donation sting so badly for Ellison. Even if his account is entirely truthful, the optics of a state attorney general sitting in a room with future federal defendants, hearing a pitch about putting "dollars in the right place," and responding affirmatively create a picture that no op-ed can easily erase.
The scandal has now reached the halls of Congress. Walz and Ellison testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 4, 2026, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The committee convened the hearing to examine the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs.
That hearing came amid a broader firestorm surrounding Walz and growing demands for answers about the state's failure to catch the fraud earlier. The committee's interest signals that federal lawmakers view the Minnesota situation as more than a local embarrassment, it is a test case for whether federal dollars flowing to state-administered programs face adequate oversight.
The House Oversight Committee's own report on the Minnesota fraud has added further weight to the scrutiny, documenting a pattern that critics say state officials were too slow, or too conflicted, to address.
Prosecutors have described a scheme in which organizations fraudulently claimed to serve meals to children while the money disappeared into private hands. Fourteen million dollars is the figure attached to the Mohamed family's piece of the operation. The broader alleged fraud across Minnesota's social services has been characterized in far larger terms, though the specific scope remains a matter of ongoing investigation and dispute.
Six guilty pleas from a single family. A $2,500 campaign donation from one of those defendants to the state's attorney general. A recorded meeting where the attorney general sat with future convicts and affirmed a message about putting money behind friendly politicians. And an op-ed defense that boils down to: I didn't know who they were.
Maybe Ellison is telling the truth. Maybe he walked into that 2021 meeting blind and walked out none the wiser. But the job of an attorney general is to protect the public from exactly this kind of fraud. When the state's chief law enforcement officer is sitting in meetings with people who are actively looting federal programs, and accepting their campaign checks, the system has failed at a basic level, regardless of what Ellison personally knew.
Some have gone further. As calls for criminal accountability for both Walz and Ellison have mounted, the political stakes in Minnesota have risen well beyond a single fraud case.
Meanwhile, Walz's own troubles continue to compound. The former governor's recent public missteps have only added to the impression that Minnesota's leadership class was more interested in managing appearances than in catching fraud.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific charges does Gandi Mohamed face? What court is handling the case? And most importantly: if a courtroom trial would have shown the public the full scope and scale of the fraud, as Glahn argues, what exactly are Minnesotans not being shown?
When six members of one family plead guilty to stealing money meant to feed children, and the state's top prosecutor was in the room with them before anyone was charged, "I didn't know" is not accountability. It's an invitation for more of the same.
