A 40-year-old man has pleaded guilty to participating in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud that exploited the Federal Child Nutrition Program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim, who is also known as Salah Donyale, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of wire fraud, according to a news release issued by the office of U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

As part of the Feeding Our Future scheme, Omar-Hashim in fall 2020 created a company called Olive Management, which claimed to serve meals to 3,000 children every day of the week at a site in St. Cloud, the news release said. The company took in nearly $7.5 million in federal aid funds.

Between September 2020 and September 2021, Olive Management claimed to have served more than 1.6 million meals. Omar-Hashim and his co-conspirators submitted an attendance roster of 2,040 children who were served by the program. Only about 20 of those names matched children attending St. Cloud Public Schools.

More than a dozen defendants in the Feeding Our Future case have pleaded guilty since federal investigators raided the organization’s offices early last year.

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