Salim Mentioned, a convicted fraudster with ties to Democratic “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar, lived like a king as he bilked a federal program meant to feed impoverished youngsters.
He packed his sprawling 6,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, five-bath Minneapolis mansion with designer luggage, Italian footwear, and luxurious watches totaling as much as $60,000.
Now the feds need all of it again.
Prosecutors are asking a decide to authorize the federal government to grab the gadgets so the previous Somali restaurant proprietor — a convicted co-conspirator within the Feeding our Future scandal — pays at the least a fraction of the proposed $7.8 million judgement towards him.
The attention-popping loot was included in a pair of authorized memos prosecutors filed with the courtroom final week.
The luxe laundry record features a 2021 Mercedes GLA -Class automotive and a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado SUV, a Rolex Submariner watch that goes for $14,000, and a shearling-lined Brunello Cucinelli coat that prices as much as $10,000, primarily based listings reviewed by The Put up.
He additionally had an enviable assortment of designer luggage, together with a Prada Monochrome Tote that fetches $800, a Burberry trench coat that prices $2,800, and a high quality footwear fetish that ran to the numerous hundreds of {dollars}.
The shoe horde contains such gadgets as Christian Laboutin boots that go for $1,600 and gray Balenciaga Pace Graffiti sneakers that price $900.
Prosecutors additionally wish to drain 5 of Mentioned’s financial institution accounts price $514,000 and seize his $1.3 million residence in Minnesota together with a $3 million business property in Columbus, Ohio, together with the haul of purses, electronics, and fragrances.
All are ill-gotten positive factors, prosecutors argued at trial earlier than Mentioned’s conviction in March, once they stated he had a $9,000-per-month spending behavior at Nordstrom’s.
Mentioned, 37, received $16 million price of federal funds for his restaurant at hand out meals for kids through the COVID-19 pandemic. He was discovered responsible in March of stealing greater than $12 million for serving 3.9 million “phantom” meals, and convicted on 21 crimes that embrace wire fraud and bribery.
His trial was marked by a brazen bribery try that gained worldwide consideration — through which a Hallmark reward bag full of $120,000 money was delivered to a juror’s residence the evening earlier than the panel was scheduled to be in courtroom to listen to closing arguments.
Omar isn’t accused of wrongdoing within the burgeoning Minnesota well being care fraud totaling as much as $9 billion. She does, nevertheless, have quite a few ties to Mentioned.
He co-owned the now-defunct Safari Restaurant, which performed host to Omar’s 2018 congressional victory celebration. Two of Safari’s co-owners donated $4,700 to Omar’s marketing campaign, based on FEC information.
Because the Feeding our Future rip-off was underway in 2020, Omar even appeared on video at Safari Restaurant to reward this system, bragging about donation numbers that turned out to be fraudulent.
“On daily basis, Safari offers 2,300 meals to youngsters and their households,” she boasted in Somali within the video, whereas being filmed dealing with trays of meals in a car parking zone together with her pandemic-era facemask pulled down beneath her nostril.
It was Somalia-born Omar who launched the laws — the MEALS Act — critics say paved the best way for the rip-off, stress-free oversight of government-sponsored youngsters’s meal packages through the pandemic.
Omar’s personal funds got here beneath scrutiny after she filed a congressional disclosure revealing a sudden leap in her personal property from subsequent to nothing to as much as $30 million.
Omar didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
