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Jamal Osman (politician)
American politician From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jamal Osman is an American politician. A member of Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he was elected to the Minneapolis City Council in 2020 to represent the 6th Ward.
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Early life
Osman was born in Somalia and was a refugee in Kenya before coming to the United States when he was 14.[1] After arriving in Minnesota, he lived in public housing.[2]
Career
Osman is a social services worker[3] and has worked as a resident advocate for the nonprofit CommonBond Communities.[4] He has also served on the board of the Phillips Community Clinic.[2]
Minneapolis City Council
A special municipal election was held on August 11, 2020, for Ward 6's vacant seat. The previous councilmember, Abdi Warsame, resigned from the seat in March 2020 to head the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. The special election occurred after the George Floyd protests and during the COVID-19 pandemic.[3] Osman said he would address the opioid crisis and advocated for access to affordable housing.[2] He defeated 10 other candidates and was sworn into office on August 28.[3]
As of January 2024, Osman chairs the Business, Housing & Zoning Committee.[5]
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Personal life
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Osman is married to Ilo Amba, the founder of the nonprofit organization Urban Advantage Services (UAS).[6] They have five children.[7] According to Osman, the family has resided in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, but questions arose about his having had a Maplewood, Minnesota, residential address during his 2020 campaign.[8]
Homophobic and antisemitic Facebook posts
In 2022, Osman apologized for making antisemitic and anti-gay comments on Facebook between 2011 and 2013. The posts called Israelis "dogs" and expressed support for Hitler. Osman also advocated for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and made derogatory remarks about Jews and non-Muslims. Osman apologized and disavowed the comments, saying they did not reflect his current beliefs and values. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey criticized Osman's comments as divisive and dangerous and expressed forgiveness while emphasizing the need for recognizing common humanity and repairing harm caused. Osman's wife's connections to a child nutrition program implicated in fraud were also reported. Osman faced difficulty in his 2023 reelection campaign due to these controversies. Another candidate, Abdirizak Bihie, who has publicly condemned gay marriage, ran for the seat.[9]
Connection to the Feeding Our Future trial
On February 17, 2025, federal prosecutors showed the jury in the Feeding Our Future trial evidence that Osman turned over his "shell company" nonprofit to others who used it to commit fraud. This came to light as Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock was on trial with a co-defendant for allegedly orchestrating a $250 million pay-to-play scheme through her nonprofit.
Concerned about the exponential growth in the program and possible fraud, the Minnesota Department of Education changed the rules in 2020 so for-profits could no longer be food distribution sites. So some of the players turned to nonprofits to continue the fraud, prosecutors say.
One of those, they say, was a nonprofit Osman founded called Stigma-Free International. Osman, his wife Ilo Amba and two others incorporated the nonprofit in 2019. Osman has said he did mental health outreach before leaving the nonprofit but on February 18, 2025, Postal Inspector John Western testified that Stigma-Free had no employees, office or apparent activity. Also, there was no activity in its bank account until Abdi Nur Salah "took over" and the nonprofit was turned over to Ahmed Artan and others in October 2020, Western said.[10] At the time, Salah was a senior policy advisor to Mayor Jacob Frey. He was fired after his involvement became known, and pleaded guilty.
Osman emailed Salah documents in 2020 about his nonprofit, and Salah forwarded them to an attorney and Salah’s brother, Abdulkadir Nur Salah, then co-owner of Safari Restaurant, a small Minneapolis restaurant that prosecutors say was one of the biggest players in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, receiving over $16 million in federal funds. Abdulkadir Nur Salah also pleaded guilty. In his email, Osman said Stigma-Free wanted to dissolve as soon as possible and transfer to new people.
Osman exited the nonprofit about two months after he was elected to the City Council in August 2020. Prosecutors showed the jurors emails in which he said he was resigning due to "family commitments and work schedule", while calling Stigma-Free an "amazing organization" that grew during his time at the helm.
In the trial, Stigma-Free International has been alleged to have opened meal sites in Willmar, Mankato, St. Cloud, Waite Park and St. Paul that prosecutors say were used to bilk the government out of more than $10 million.
About a month after turning Stigma-Free over to new directors, Osman’s wife, Amba, incorporated another nonprofit, Urban Advantage Center, that reported feeding 2,500 kids a day from February through September 2021, for which it was reimbursed more than $461,500. Neither Ambo nor Osman has been charged with a crime. Urban Advantage Center was shut down in November by Attorney General Keith Ellison, who said Amba created it to enrich herself and her family by exploiting the federal program.[11]
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Electoral history
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References
External links
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