The 4 prosecutors who spearheaded a $250 million Minnesota fraud case won’t be in court docket on the subsequent trial as a result of they’ve all left the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Minnesota in latest days, together with greater than a dozen others in a rising wave of resignations.
The departures have left the already-diminished workplace with as few as 17 assistant U.S. attorneys, in accordance with sources contained in the workplace — down from 70 through the Biden administration.
Former prosecutors Joe Thompson, Harry Jacobs, Daniel Bobier and Matthew Ebert — the 4 attorneys who had been main the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case, which was the primary shoe to drop within the huge Minnesota fraud scandal — have handed off the prosecution to relative newcomers to the workplace.
Harry Jacobs, who was lately named head of the workplace’s felony division, was additionally concerned within the prosecution of Vance Boelter, the person accused of assassinating former Minnesota Home Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.
Sources near the attorneys who left have cited a wide range of elements for the employees shakeup, together with caseload administration, structural points inside the workplace, the Trump administration’s affect on the workplace, and considerations associated to Operation Metro Surge — the continuing immigration enforcement operation within the Twin Cities that has led to 1000’s of arrests in addition to repeated clashes with protesters, two of whom have been killed by federal brokers.
“The mass exodus we’re seeing in Minnesota is alarming,” mentioned Stacey Younger, founding father of Justice Connection, a Washington, D.C.-based group of former Justice Division workers.
“We must always all take note of why among the state’s prime federal prosecutors selected to go away — it had nothing to do with political disagreement; slightly, this administration requested them to violate their authorized and moral tasks, and so they believed the exit was their solely possibility,” Younger mentioned. “The lack of institutional information and experience will destabilize the U.S. Lawyer’s workplace, leaving Minnesotans’ security and rights much less protected.”
The workplace’s ranks have been depleted even earlier than Operation Metro Surge. By the point Daniel Rosen was sworn in as U.S. lawyer in October 2025, the variety of prosecutors had already dropped to lower than 40, former and present officers inform CBS Information. They cited retirements and modifications made by the Trump administration, together with cuts associated to the Division of Authorities Effectivity, generally known as DOGE.
The Justice Division has sought to buttress Minnesota’s prosecutorial ranks with prosecutors from neighboring districts, together with from Michigan, in addition to the Division of Homeland Safety and navy attorneys. However that has not at all times labored out nicely. A DHS lawyer working in Minnesota on Tuesday informed a decide “this job sucks” and requested to be held in contempt “in order that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep.” She was faraway from the Minnesota project on Wednesday.
The Minnesota U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace declined to remark. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in Detroit declined to remark when requested what number of attorneys had been dispatched from the Japanese District of Michigan.
Up to now, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have convicted 62 individuals in connection to the scandal, which tops the record of the nation’s most expensive COVID-era fraud sprees. Federal prosecutors estimate taxpayer losses exceed $1 billion.
Feeding Our Future was the preliminary scheme: a nonprofit group that tricked state and federal officers into paying them to serve meals to 1000’s of hungry kids however by no means offered the meals. That group allegedly raked in $250 million.
The ultimate trial of these charged within the scheme is scheduled for April. Ikram Yusuf Mohamed, Suleman Yusuf Mohamed, Aisha Hassan Hussein, Sahra Sharif Osman, Shakur Abdinur Abdisalam, Fadumo Mohamed Yusuf and Gandi Yusuf Mohamed face prices of conspiracy, wire fraud, cash laundering and bribery.
The 2 prosecutors now main the case are Rebecca Kline and Matthew Murphy. Each prosecutors joined the workplace in January 2024, after working in personal follow, in accordance with their LinkedIn pages.
Extra fraud circumstances have since come into focus. In August, state officers shut down a housing program designed to assist seniors and folks with disabilities, citing “large-scale fraud.” In September, prosecutors charged eight individuals with defrauding this system by enrolling as suppliers and submitting thousands and thousands in “faux and inflated payments.”
Joe Thompson, the previous first Assistant U.S. Lawyer who turned the general public face asserting the indictments, made information earlier than his departure when he mentioned in December that federal prosecutors have been investigating roughly $18 billion spent on social packages in Minnesota since 2018. CBS Information requested how a lot they consider was fraud, and so they mentioned they’ve “seen extra crimson flags than legit suppliers.” Thompson urged half of the $18 billion or extra might be fraudulent.
