MINNEAPOLIS — A defendant accused of orchestrating $3 million in fraud as part of the broader Feeding Our Future scheme apologized to the court during his sentencing Monday, minutes before a federal judge ordered him to serve one year in prison for his role in the scandal.
“Your honor, I just want to say I’m sorry to everyone that my actions have hurt,” Abdul Abubakar Ali told the judge. “This was a mistake. I will try to correct it for the rest of my life. It’s not something that’s in the past. I’ve let down a lot of people. I promise I will attempt to fix it for the rest of my life. So, I’m sorry.”
Ali initially pleaded guilty in October 2022 after admitting that he used a shell company, known as Youth Inventors Lab, to defraud the federal pandemic meals program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Court documents show that Ali and his co-conspirators submitted fake invoices and claimed to have served more than one million meals despite serving none, helping him to personally pocket more than $100,000…