On May 7, 2026, a federal judge sentenced Rochester restaurant owner Sharmake Jama to 16 months in prison and ordered him to repay roughly $5.3 million for his role in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. Prosecutors also secured a three-year term for co-defendant Filsan Hassan, marking another high-profile pair of sentences in the long-running investigation into pandemic-era child nutrition money.
What the court found
Jama pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering and was ordered to repay about $5.3 million, according to KSTP. Court records cited in coverage say Jama worked with alleged ringleader Salim Said and Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and arranged kickbacks that helped keep the operation going. Prosecutors say he signed up his Brava Restaurant for the federal Child Nutrition Program, then inflated meal counts so he could collect reimbursements that the government now calls fraudulent.
How investigators say the money was spent
Federal reporting says at least $5.31 million tied to Jama was diverted to personal spending, including a 2021 GMC truck, a home in Rosemount, and what prosecutors described as a summer home in Turkey, according to KTTC. The station reported that Jama and several co-defendants operated out of the Brava site and claimed they were serving thousands of meals a day that were never actually provided. KTTC also noted that Jama has been ordered to voluntarily surrender to U.S. Marshals in Minneapolis by mid-June to begin serving his sentence.
Other sentences and restitution
Federal authorities also secured a three-year prison sentence for Filsan Hassan, along with a restitution order of about $376,000, according to KSTP. Reporting and court documents state that Hassan admitted using program funds for personal property, including about $114,000 that went toward a Brooklyn Park townhome, as detailed by the Sahan Journal. Hassan previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and is one of many defendants now sentenced in the broader case.
Where this fits in the wider case
The Jama and Hassan sentences landed in the middle of a massive prosecution that has already produced dozens of guilty pleas and several lengthy prison terms as investigators try to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars in misused child nutrition funds, according to reporting in the Star Tribune. Federal indictments and Justice Department materials describe an extensive web of sponsored meal sites and shell vendors that prosecutors say claimed far more meals than anyone served. The original Department of Justice announcements outline the scale of the charges, and with Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock scheduled for sentencing in late May, prosecutors say there is more to come.
Legal notes
Court filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota identify Brava Restaurant & Cafe LLC as one site that enrolled in federal child nutrition programs under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship, then submitted false meal claims. Those documents are available on public court filing systems. Across the wider case, sentences have varied significantly based on plea deals, forfeitures, and cooperation with investigators, and judges continue to balance restitution and asset seizures alongside prison time as they sort through the long list of defendants.
