Former MPHA board chair pleads guilty to wire fraud in Feeding Our Future case

The former board chair of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court for his alleged role in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud case.

Sharmarke Issa served a three-year term on the MPHA beginning in 2019, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey appointed him to a second term in November 2021 and designated him as board chair. However, he tendered his resignation in early 2022.

In his application for the role in October 2021, Issa wrote that he is “passionate” about “providing deeply affordable housing to those in our community that need it the most.” Meanwhile, a plea agreement filed in federal court accuses him of purchasing a $785,000 house in Edina using money he defrauded from a federal program meant to feed children from low-income families.

Issa created a company called Minnesota’s Somali Community in May 2020 to operate meal sites under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and another nonprofit as part of the Federal Child Nutrition Program. Federal prosecutors say he claimed to have served 2.3 million meals to children but “served only a portion of the meals claimed.”

His activity allegedly generated $7.6 million in fraudulent claims, of which he received nearly $3.6 million.

As part of the plea agreement, Issa is expected to pay at least $3 million in restitution and will be ordered to forfeit any properties he obtained with money gained through fraud.

In all, federal prosecutors have charged 70 people in connection with the Feeding Our Future case, which U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger has called the “largest pandemic relief fraud scheme” in the country.

Issa’s plea to one count of wire fraud makes him the 19th defendant to enter a guilty plea; a jury trial earlier this year resulted in convictions for five others.