Prosecutor on Feeding our Future juror bribe: 'Something out of a mob movie'

Full Investigation Transcript

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on Monday morning June 3 toward the end of the first feeding our future trial we learned that an unknown woman showed up at the home of a juror juror 52 because juror 52 did not answer the door the woman explained to the man who did that she was leaving $120,000 in cash for the juror as a bribe in exchange for an acquittal other than the lawyers defendant and the court in this case no one knew the names of the jurors jurors 52 immediately contacted authorities when she learned of the bribe exposing the plot to corrupt the jury the news of this plot was announced in court that Monday morning the news shocked all in the case and all who work in our Criminal Justice System Corruption of a jury through intimidation or bribery is a serious federal crime that carries a significant prison sentence nationally the the Department of Justice and the FBI take jury intimidation and bribery extremely seriously and always have but it just doesn’t happen in Minnesota until now on June 3D as we observed this disturbing news we knew almost nothing about this crime and had many questions who was the woman who delivered the bribe why did she and others focus on this juror how did they know where the juror lived how did they hatch their plan to bribe juror 52 and who was involved well our team of a usas and federal agents were finishing the case that would lead to five convictions we simultaneously began to unravel this plot over the past three weeks prosecutors in my office and experienced investigators from the FBI along with postal inspectors and IRS agents reviewed mountains of digital and physical evidence with appropriate fervor to answer these and many other questions I thank all of them and our partners at the BCA for their dedication to the Integrity of the justice system so that now only a few weeks later only a few weeks after this bribery plot was foiled we have the answers today we announce an indictment against five defendants they are charged with crimes including consp iring to corrupt the feeding our future jury by bribing juror 52 and attempting to win an AC quiddle not on the evidence but through an elaborate scheme to infiltrate this jury the five defendants are leaden Ali Abdi ma Abdi Majid no s Farah Abdi aiz Farah and Abdi Kim far Leen Ali was the woman who showed up a juror 52’s home with the bribe money Abdi Majid no was a feeding our future trial defendant he recruited leadon Ali and what we describe as a blueprint for juror 52 to an instruction manual on how to win and AC quiddle was found on his phone defendant s Farah is also a defendant in the feeding our future trial he provided the bribe funds and he deleted on his phone although we recovered it a video of leaden Ali delivering the bribe to juror 52’s home as we’ll discuss more in a moment ABD aiz Farah was also a feeding our future defendant organized this conspiracy deleted all of his phone contents in court on June 3 and a list of jurors was found in his home as I’ll show you in a moment Abdul Karim Farah is the brother of Abdi aiz and S Farah he surveilled juror 52 to learn more about her and he assisted leaden Ali the night that she delivered the bribe funds to juror 52’s home in a moment I will explain in some detail how our investigation unfolded and provide an overview of some of the evidence that led to these charges but first I want to be very clear when the bribe was announced in court lead prosecutor Joe Thompson rightly stated that it was like something out of a mob movie that was three weeks ago but now that we’ve put in weeks of work around the clock to unravel this plot it is so much more as alleged in the indictment and other documents these defendants engaged in a chilling attack on our justice system they sought to buy a juror and use her to infiltrate the jury with their own false arguments arguments that had nothing to do with the evidence or the law they studied her followed her and determined that she would succumb to their scheme the fact that they failed does not lessen the magnitude of what they tried to do jury trials are one of the cor cornerstones of our democracy they rely on facts law and indeep the independence of 12 people who stand for impartial Justice these defendants sought to undermine these fundamental Democratic principles and they plotted carefully and deliberately during the trial waiting for the right moment to act fortunately for all of us juror 5 2 could not be bought and she terminated their scheme there’s one phrase that comes up in this case that I’ll show you in a moment that really encapsulates the chilling nature of this attack when the defendants instructed juror 52 or tried to you alone can end this case that phrase comes up later as we unwrap AV the evidence that we we encountered so how did the team of FBI agents and prosecutors with help from the postal inspectors IRS and BCA uncover the Essential Elements of this scheme and identify the co-conspirators in such short order I’m now going to give you a little bit of a window into the investigation and how just some of the evidence against these defendants came together as as you know Sunday night June 2nd a bag with $120,000 was delivered to juror 52 for those who haven’t seen it this is the bag and this is the money juror 52 turned it over to authorities authorities turned it over to the FBI on June 3rd the bribery attempt was announced in court because juror 52 contacted authorities when the money was brought to her home the court ordered all defendants to turn over their cell phones to authorities defendant Abdi aiz far immediately wiped his phone clean actually engaged in what’s called a factory reset to wipe the entire phone clean of all of its contents as we worked through the night and the next day preparing an investigation strategy FBI on June 5th executed a search warrant at the home of Abdi aiz Farah and there they found a list of the jurors names a list that should never have left the courthouse list was hidden in a water bottle as you see here in ABIA far AB abiz far home far’s home next we learned because we brought the bag to the BCA that the BC that the bag contained the Fingerprints of someone named leaden Ali learned that Laden Ali lived in Seattle the investigation began to focus on her as well so next we’ll take a look at the activities of leaden Ali as we learned them on May 30th a Thursday Laden Ali arrived in Minneapolis to undertake the bribery plot on May 31st after court Friday leaden Ali surveilled juror 52 following her from the courthouse to her home just one example of some of the evidence that we gathered quickly picture of leaden Ali in her rental car as you see up in the top left following juror 52 in the Blurred out car juror 52 leaving a parking ramp heading home the sophistication and intentionality of this plot cannot be overstated juror 52 then is leaving see it trying to trying to leave the area and leaden Ali following her closely behind one of the things that the conspirators decided to do here was track the movements day and night of Juror 52 this chart represents just a list of some of the times that leaden Ali’s rent car that she’ rented upon Landing here on May 30th was documented near jur 52’s home 19 occasions Laden Ali is following jur 52 at close range and all of these slides will be available to the media this is more than just a mob movie this is a chilling attack on our system of justice Len Ali delivered the bribe to juror 52’s home the evening of June 2nd on June 3 after it was announced that there was this bribe attempt the night before Laden Lei left Minneapolis early changed her flights she was destined to leave a few few days later she got out of here after she left packages arrived at her hotel room including a car tracking device it’s part of the plot and scheme to follow juror 52 now let’s focus on the day of the bribe June 2nd on June 2nd Abdul Karim Farah whose job it was to assist Laden 52 Laden Ali follow juror 52 purchased a screwdriver at a store to take off the license plates of Ali’s rental car and here’s a a photo capturing him leaving a store with a screwdriver that he purchased for that purpose sometimes when you’re trying to track somebody and you don’t want law enforcement to know about it you take off your license plates because there are something called license plates readers around obviously it didn’t work fully because we were able to track that car then Leen Ali and Abdul kareim Farah arrived at the home of durur 52 Sunday evening one of the things that FBI agents were doing during this entire period that were investigating this case is going through the phones that were ordered turned over by the judge made a little bit more difficult because there were a lot of deletions including one of the defendants who deleted the entire phone the FBI was able to uncover evidence including a text from Abdul Karim Farah to S Farah saying still posted outside of house letting him know where outside of Juror 52’s house just think about that Sunday night before the final day of trial our team is here preparing the final days of arguments and these guys are plotting to bribe a juror Abdul far Abdul Karim Farah also took a video of Leen Ali going to the home standing at the door and providing the funds Abdul Abdul Karim Farah then sent that video to S Farah saying watch and delete s Farah later deleted the video but we were able to recover it from his phone we’re not going to play that video for you because it shows detail of Juror 52’s home next back to the timeline of the investigation while we’re learning this at the very bottom FBI found on the phone of Abdi Majid no a blueprint document for juror 52 because it’s not enough just to give juror 52 $120,000 you then have to instruct R her in how to go about winning an AC quiddle and they thought through carefully what they wanted juror 52 to say this is a copy of the document actually full copy will be made available to you in the packets that we have for you I’ve used the word chilling a couple of times I’ve been doing this for a long time I will tell you that this document is chilling starts off with the introduction below our arguments to convince other jurors remember your vote will be not guilty on all counts for all defendants and then the very first argument that the defendants want this juror to make to the jury is we are immigrants they don’t respect and care about us one of three times in this document that the co-conspirators inject racism into this case or try to other arguments are made in the middle of the document there’s Prejudice by the government against people of color excuse me and you’ll have all these documents and why why why is it always people of color and immigrants prosecuted for the fault of others one of the things that’s so concerning about this is that the defendants are injecting into a jury arguments that could never be made in the court of law and for which there’s no support and think about it the very first argument the defendants instruct juror 52 to make is not one on the evidence of the law it is to accuse the government of racism false claims of racism in a court case are destructive in so many ways first as you heard at trial in this trial from the mde witness the false allegation of racism against mde employees who looked into the defendants fraud was designed to intimidate state employees from asking questions and doing their jobs so let’s be clear in this office we do our jobs without fear or favor no such allegation will ever deter us the FBI or our law enforcement Partners from Seeking Justice second here the false allegation was designed to sway a jury based on an argument that the lawyers could never make an open court and that no one could address before the judge who instructs the jury it is the definition of improperly and deliberately corrupting a jury finally it is an obvious and blatant attempt to inflame the jury so that they disregard their duty to render Justice based on the evidence through this blueprint for acquittal the defendants made clear that they wanted to infiltrate the jury not only with a bribe but with a wellth thought out plan to corrupt our system and undermine the rule of law and then finally the sort of concluding inspiration for juror 52 you must hold fast not guilty on all counts and then the language I quoted earlier you alone can end this case and I want to pause there as I said one of the core principles of our democracy is an independent jury who reaches a conclusion based on the facts and the law and here they informed one person that for $120,000 you alone can end this case the jurors here the the defendants here are charged with a number of crimes some of which I don’t think have ever been charged in Minnesota all five are charged with a conspiracy to commit juror bribery all five are com are charged with violation of section 2011 bribery of a juror all five are charged with Section 1503 corruptly endeavoring to influence a juror and Abdi aiz Farah as you’ll see in the indictment is charged with Section 1512 obstruction of justice for deleting his phone after being instructed to turn it over in its current form by the judge I started my career as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn where one of the missions of the office was to to dismantle the five mafia families just like in the movies as Joe said the ma Mafia sometimes sought to corrupt juries through intimidation and bribery as a result where appropriate courts ordered juries to be entirely Anonymous and sequestered but that was decades ago in New York this form of corruption has now made its way to Minnesota we must therefore take this threat to our system of justice seriously going forward together with the FBI and our law enforcement Partners we will examine when and whether to seek Anonymous and sequester juries to protect what happened here as we protect our juries from corruption we will be standing up for the Integrity of our system of justice there is no higher priority than protecting the that system whether a jury convicts or acquits it must always be on the merits and based on what happens in the courtroom not bribes and not false arguments snuck into a jury room we sometimes ask ourselves all of us I think whether one person can actually make a difference it doesn’t take much juror 52 gave us a clear example of how to do it on Sunday night June 2nd juror 52 refused a bribe and called authorities and she made a difference we together Partners at the FBI sa Alvin Winston my team we will finish the work juror 52 started we will bring these defendants to Justice I’ll take some questions Lou what is the origin of the it’s not in any of the documents that are in this case yet and so that will have to come out later Lou yes other than S Farah Prov it’s stated in the indictment provided the money yes I don’t I don’t have anything on that either I’ll come back to you yeah yeah um obviously you detailed this extensively do you have any concern that there were any other attemps that somehow any of this message infil jur so we don’t have any evidence to that effect but we’re still looking and investigating we did this quickly and we wanted to bring charges as quickly as we could for a number of reasons but this investigation’s ongoing that it appeared to me that 5 was the only person onur think Reas in the indictment it alleges that she was targeted for two reasons one she was young and two that they believed she was the only juror of color yeah ernesta uh there are defendants in custody other defendants turning themselves in I believe they’re in custody now yes yeah Stephen I can’t answer any of those based on the yeah rob you mention the juror list ft yes it’s a typed up list based on what was in the courtroom yeah it’s it’s not the actual list that was in court it’s a typed up list based on what was in court through other court filings that that to that issue there was a missing list or address that yeah good question Lou not at this time do you know when I don’t although I vividly recall the office that I was in in 1992 Prosecuting a juror but well we’ll get into it I remember it very clearly Dina it’s not described in uh the indictment but they knew her well enough to recruit her yeah just off the top of my head I noted that not every defendant home was searched here in the last mon is in this indictment team so I never comment one way or the another on whether anybody has cooperated or not and I’m not going to do that here but um stay tuned got yes yes three o’clock two o’clock Joe 1:30 today 1:30 today in St Paul so we got to end quickly so those you want to get over there can yeah in a case like this were you able to go to the jurors once they were finished deliberating and rer their vers and ask them hey were you approached by somebody oper that is something that is typically done over time in a in a bribery investigation we we have not done that yet here how is um I’ll answer that question at a later time as you can tell I don’t have a lot of answers Scott no so that’s a qu thank you that’s a question I can answer um yes we’re we are concerned just based on knowing how this how this has occurred elsewhere and so like I said in my remarks we’re going to be studying closely what to seek in future cases and where the FBI and myself and our team believe it’s appropriate we will seek sequestered and Anonymous juries because that’s the single best way to ward off this kind of thing yeah L regarding s far to be clear he walked out of the courthouse after the verdict was was reached was free in between then and yesterday were you able to determine if he fured the crime during that time period I can’t comment on that how much has this affected your so we’re gonna we now have a case to prosecute and try that’s separate from the remaining trials and we’re assembling the correct teams and the correct order and the correct resources along with the FBI and other law enforcement to staff up for all of this but um this is what we do not we didn’t specifically hear from you on the com was a majority guilty so we don’t have any information to suggest that that’s the case if I did I would say so but the investigation’s ongoing it’s been three weeks my comment um on the verdict is what what Joe Thompson said from this Podium this was a clear victory for the government because as I’ve said in every fraud case I’ve worked on the most important thing is to um have a jury agree with us that this was a massive fraud and it occurred the way that we did you charge 70 defendants there’s a chance you’re going to have some acquittal the most most important thing that happened here is that five people were convicted of engaging in the very exact fraud that we’ve been talking about for a couple of years and I was gratified to uh see that and Joe said all that I think per perfectly well in the press conference yes Scot I can’t we’re running out of things I can say so I I want to I just just want to end with this uh there’s a reason you don’t see these kinds of cases often orever in Minnesota and not nationally this really is an attack on our system of justice and you can plead not guilty you can go to trial you can make all the arguments that a court will allow you to make and I honor lawyers who do that what you can’t do is corrupt a jury and you can’t tell a juror you alone can end this case thanks for coming oh three today no it’s somebody it’s one of the to