Gandi Mohamed, 45, is expected to plead guilty or enter a no-contest plea at a change-of-plea hearing scheduled for Thursday, making him the sixth member of his family to face conviction in a scheme that prosecutors say siphoned $14 million from a federal child nutrition program. The case has drawn fresh scrutiny to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who met with members of the accused family in 2021, before anyone had been indicted, and accepted a campaign donation from Mohamed himself.
Court records show Mohamed's hearing is set for this week, Fox News Digital reported. Fox 9 Minneapolis confirmed he would be the sixth family member to plead guilty in the fraud operation, which prosecutors say involved fraudulently claiming to serve meals while pocketing federal dollars meant to feed children.
The plea comes as both Ellison and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz face a March 4 appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That committee has been examining the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs, a sprawling investigation that has put the state's Democratic leadership squarely on the defensive.
At the center of the political fallout is a 2021 meeting between Ellison and members of Minnesota's Somali community. The meeting took place before President Joe Biden's Department of Justice had indicted anyone in the fraud case, and before any convictions had been secured.
A recording from that meeting captured one of the Somali community members making a pointed appeal. The unnamed speaker said:
"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 recorded response: "That's right."
The attorney general has since pushed back on the implication that the meeting amounted to anything improper. In an April 2025 op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune, Ellison wrote:
"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 the donation tell a more complicated story. Gandi Mohamed gave the maximum $2,500 campaign contribution to Ellison. That donation was returned, not to Mohamed, but to the Department of Justice, in 2025. Ellison's claim that he "took nothing from them" sits uneasily next to a contribution that had to be sent back to federal prosecutors years later.
The broader pattern in Minnesota has drawn sustained attention. The House Oversight Committee has already delivered a formal report on the state's fraud problems, and the March 4 hearing promises to sharpen the questions directed at both Walz and Ellison.
With Gandi Mohamed's expected plea, six members of the same family will have been convicted in the child nutrition fraud scheme. Prosecutors say the operation claimed to serve meals it never served, then pocketed the $14 million in federal funds. The no-contest option available to Mohamed would still result in conviction and sentencing, but would spare the public the full airing of evidence that a trial would provide.
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital that while convictions matter, the absence of a trial leaves the public short-changed:
"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 is worth sitting with. Plea deals are efficient. They save time and money. But when the fraud involves millions in taxpayer dollars funneled through a program designed to feed children, the public has a legitimate interest in seeing the full record laid bare, not quietly resolved behind closed doors.
The case also fits a pattern of federal scrutiny bearing down on Minnesota officials. The Justice Department has separately investigated Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over claims of obstructing immigration agents, adding another layer to the growing list of accountability questions facing the state's leadership.
Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minneapolis against Rep. Ilhan Omar, has seized on the fraud scandal as a defining issue. She told Fox News Digital that Ellison's conduct goes beyond negligence:
"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 described rolling out a five-point plan to prevent fraud before it starts. She framed the issue not just as a fiscal matter but as one that harms the people government programs are supposed to help:
"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."
Her accusation, that fraud proceeds are being used to buy political influence, echoes the uncomfortable dynamic captured in the 2021 recording. A community member tells the state's top law enforcement officer that "putting our dollars in the right place" and "supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests" is the path forward. The attorney general agrees. Then a $2,500 check arrives.
President Trump has also weighed in on the Minnesota fraud saga. He has publicly criticized both Omar and Walz over the welfare fraud issue, making it clear the White House views the scandal as a failure of state-level Democratic governance.
Walz and Ellison are both set to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 4. A photo caption from the hearing shows Walz at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2026, placing the testimony squarely in the context of ongoing congressional pressure.
The committee's focus on alleged misuse of federal funds intended for social services and Medicaid programs suggests the questioning will range well beyond the $14 million child nutrition case. The hearing's scope points to broader concerns about how Minnesota managed, or failed to manage, billions in federal dollars.
Meanwhile, federal investigators have been active on multiple fronts in the state. The Minnesota Secretary of State was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury probing non-citizen voter registrations, a separate but parallel thread of federal scrutiny that reinforces the picture of a state government facing serious questions about institutional integrity.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific charges and statutes apply to Gandi Mohamed's case? Which court is handling the proceedings? And what exactly does the broader "$9 billion" figure, cited in accusations against Walz and Ellison, encompass? The March 4 testimony may begin to fill in those gaps, or it may produce the kind of evasive answers that only deepen public frustration.
Ellison says he met with people he didn't know and some "turned out to have done bad things." Six guilty pleas from a single family, a returned campaign donation, and a recorded agreement to protect mutual "interests", that's a lot of bad luck for one good-faith meeting.
When the state's top law enforcement officer keeps ending up in the same room as the people his office should be pursuing, Minnesota taxpayers deserve more than an op-ed.
