Alleged mastermind of Feeding Our Future fraud goes on trial

The second case in the Feeding Our Future fraud formally commenced last week with jury selection on Monday and Tuesday in Minneapolis before Judge Nancy Brasel. Judge Brasel adjourned until opening statements yesterday. A panel of 12 jurors and four alternates was chosen to hear the evidence in a trial that is expected to run approximately four weeks.

The massive case implicates some 70 defendants. The first case went to trial against seven of the defendants this past April and resulted in five guilty verdicts. In number of defendants, it was the biggest criminal case ever tried in Minnesota federal court.

The trial also resulted in a bribery case against three of the seven defendants in the fraud trial along with two co-conspirators. That too was something new under the Minnesota sun. The bag of cash these defendants had delivered to the home of juror number 52 demonstrated that the FBI had left money on the table when it executed search warrants on defendants in January 2022.

Thirty-four of the 70 defendants charged have pleaded guilty to date. Two of the four defendants in this second case to go to trial pleaded guilty on Jan. 28.

The Feeding Our Future case features a cast of “diverse” defendants without much diversity. They are almost all Somali. However, at the center of the fraud case is a white woman—one Aimee Bock. Bock recruited the large cast of Somali defendants to participate through her Feeding Our Future nonprofit, which sponsored other nonprofit organizations to serve meals to kids at government expense during the Covid regime.

Bock had deep insight into the mind of her Minnesota overseers. With her large cast of Somali recruits on board, she sought to scare her overseers off with cries of “racism” when questions were raised about the gusher of taxpayer funds funneled to them through Feeding Our Future.

Salim Said is the remaining defendant on trial with Bock in this second case. Said is the former co-owner of Safari Restaurant on Lake Street in Minneapolis. Safari allegedly participated in Bock’s scheme by draining $16 million from government nutrition programs by submitting fraudulent claims for reimbursement for more millions of fictitious meals allegedly served to children in need during the pandemic.

Assistant United States Attorney Daniel Bobier laid out the government’s case against Bock and Said in his opening statement. Setting the case in its context, he described it as the largest Covid fraud in the country. Bock and Feeding Our Future were to act as a gatekeeper and monitor of the organizations they sponsored to participate in the meal programs funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and administered by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Instead Bock concocted a “brazen scheme” involving hundreds of players. Bobier described Said as one of the biggest crooks in Bock’s cast of players.

Under the USDA programs, Feeding Our Future took a 10 percent cut of the reimbursements it administered. Founded by Bock in 2018, Bobier said, by 2021 it was a business juggernaut administering $200 million in claims for reimbursement for an exploding array of sites around the state. The fraudulent claims for reimbursement through Feeding Our Future were premised on claims for payments on “impossible numbers.” Bock stole a lot of money based on fraudulent meal counts arising from newly formed sites. The meal counts Bock submitted were fake, the underlying receipts and invoices were shams, as were the rosters of students allegedly served.

Said’s Safari Restaurant allegedly served up to 42,000 meals a week. The idea is that it was an impossibly high number, reflecting more students than the number served by Minnesota’s largest high school. Said branched out with a new company that Bobier described as a shell, ASA Limited, and new sites through entities using a variation of the name Stigma Free. Each Stigma Free site had a fake vendor to support fake claims for reimbursement. According to Bobier, “Salim created an empire to rip out every dollar he could.” Bobier explained that he would prove his case with the fraudulent documents that supported the claims.

The Minnesota Department of Education suspected that meals, or rather the meal claims, were not kosher. It ultimately called the FBI. Outside the sites involved, it found no kids, no food deliveries, and empty streets.

Bobier illustrated his opening statement with photos of Bock’s trips to Las Vegas with her boyfriend. In one she was pictured in a Lamborghini rented for $2,000 a day. In another she was pictured in a Rolls Royce rented for another $2,000 a day. And so on.

Bobier concluded his opening with the comment that “they acted like they were entitled to [do what they did] and dared others to stop it.” He asserted that Bock is responsible for “fraud on an order of magnitude this state has never seen in so short a period of time.”

Attorney Ken Udoibok represents Bock. Speaking well over an hour, he repeated certain themes that he claimed over and over “the evidence will show.” The evidence will show “MDE lied,” he said. MDE refused to investigate fraud or take responsibility for its failures. MDE itself reauthorized fraudulent sites after Bock had terminated them.

Udoibok plaintively asked, what was one woman to do? Udoibok named numerous defendants who have pleaded guilty and whom he anticipates may testify. The large cast of fraudsters surrounding Bock apparently discovered the vulnerability of the system to theft all by themselves. Bock had nothing to do with it.

It was hard not to laugh when Udoibok observed: “Ms. Bock is not Jacques Cousteau. She’s not Columbo.” I’m not sure what Jacques Cousteau has to do with it. However, I couldn’t help but think that Columbo would have been able to crack this case. “Just one more question, Ms. Bock.”

Bock followed the law, Udoibok said. She sued MDE and reported people who committed fraud to MDE. People lied to her. He asked again, “what is she supposed to do?” MDE’s oversights and failures should not be laid at her doorstep. She is just a convenient target.

Attorney Adrian Montez made the opening statement for Said. He held true to his promise to be “very brief.” He rejected the government’s premise that something criminal in nature occurred in this case. He asked the jury to consider the timeframe in which the parties were acting. The starting point was early 2020—a time of completely unprecedented change. Every business had to adapt because of the pandemic. “The restaurant business was no different.”

Every restaurant changed its business model from in-person dining “to takeout and catering,” he argued. The federal food programs relaxed their requirements. Said began feeding members of his community through new companies he created. Money was made and paid to individuals, but jurors should refrain from reaching the conclusion the government reached. In his conclusion he urged the jury to “keep an eye on who’s doing what and when and ask if they’re sitting here charged with a crime today.”

The government then called United States Postal Inspector Matthew Hoffman and MDE Director of Nutrition Program Services Emily Honer as its first witnesses. The trial continues on Tuesday with the cross-examination of Ms. Honer.

Scott Johnson

Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney who writes for Power Line and serves on the board of Alpha News.