MN fraud: Inside Salim Said's Feeding our Future sentencing hearing

A lot of these trials, I covered this trial last year in federal court in Minneapolis related to Feeding Our Future. Saleem Syed was tried alongside Amy Bach. Amy Bach, the founder of Feeding Our Future, which sponsored meal sites to deliver meals to kids during the COVID-19 pandemic when they were distance learning. Saleem Syed sort of described by the government as the number two person there. They were, again, convicted together last year. Amy Bach was sentenced earlier this year to, what was it, 41 years in prison. Syed today sentenced to 30 years in prison and more than $44 million in restitution. Emily Pulfall was down there covering this, the sentencing itself, what people had to say afterwards. And Emily, you put some notes in here in our newsroom system about some of the things that were being said in court. And first, let's start with both Syed's defense attorney and what Syed himself said in trying to plead for leniency. Right, yeah, so as part of this sentencing hearing, both sides got the opportunity to plead their case one more time in whether or not the judge hands down what would be what the state was requesting or something lower than that for sentencing. And what I noticed mostly about Syed's defense attorney's argument here was he was really trying to distance Saeed from Amy Bach. Prosecutors say that the government says that he was kind of her number two. The defense attorney during his portion of this hearing or of this sentencing was talking about how Bach was the one in charge of writing all the checks. And that wasn't Syed. Another core part of the defense here was giving a little bit of background on Syed's history, how he fled from Somalia and how the first 15 years or so of his life were very difficult. the defense attorney said um he kind of made this more emotional plea to the judge saying that when you're handing down this sentence saying you're sentencing the whole person um and it to a certain degree the judge did acknowledge that when she announced her decision Saeed himself also had a couple minutes to just say a few words to the court um it was really just like four sentences I wrote down some of the quotes. He said, I'm deeply sorry for my involvement in this very serious case. I know better. He said, you will never see me again on the wrong side of the law. So not much. The defense attorney also noting, yeah, this is your notes too. You have to consider the kind of life he had. Noted family members writing letters to the court in support of Salim Syed. But again, the judge, how did the judge respond then in what she said when handing down the sentence? Well, she did really understand the government's argument, which was that this type of massive fraud scheme just deteriorates public trust in the government. So to a certain degree this sentencing today was about more than just this particular crime. It was kind of about sending a message. And she did make some remarks that kind of were in line with that when she was announcing the sentence. She said, quote, it is my hope that one day the words Minnesota and fraud will not be spoken in the same sentence. And it was really, I thought, kind of summed up the whole, again, not just Saeed's case here, but the whole feeding our future scheme. And she wound up sentencing him to 30 years, which was not quite what the state was asking for, but certainly significantly more than the defense was asking for state was asking or sorry the government was asking for 40 years and uh the defense was asking for 12 so uh the judge handed down this 30-year sentence and then also ordered more than 44 million dollars in restitution which is about what they say Saeed defrauded the government yeah defrauded the government and again i'm quoting from your notes that you sent us here that the government said that while Mr. Saeed did not personally participate in every dollar that was stolen, he was one of the central players and that he profited the most off of Amy Bach's scheme. So they, again, really, and this was what was presented in trial too, is that he was somebody that actually ran meal sites, but also helped enroll other meal sites into the program and was central to that sort of being her point person, I guess. What afterwards, there are certainly family members there. I know you were trying to talk to people afterwards. Any progress there in trying to get quotes after the sentencing? Yeah, it was a full gallery. So there were a lot of people from the government, whether that was federal agents or other people from the US Attorney's Office there. And there was also a fair amount of family and friends of Saeed. As we were leaving the courtroom, definitely some high-running emotions from his family and friends. We did briefly talk to his defense attorney, Barry Zone. I believe he's out of New York. He didn't have any sort of comments to give us on any reaction to the sentence. He just said that he was very busy and had to get going. And then we did see him later speaking with the family and kind of comforting this older woman that we saw crying. And actually, I thought it was pretty notable, too, during his portion of the sentencing where he was kind of pleading with the judge. He said, quote, I've gotten to know his family so well to give him a 40 year sentence for his involvement in this case is not just. so it did seem like there was a some kind of relationship really built up there between the two of them yeah all right emily thanks so much for the time appreciate it all right