Prosecutor calls Feeding Our Future ‘money making engine’ of fraud as trial of founder opens
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Jurors heard opening statements Monday in the trial of Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and Salim Said, one of her co-defendants. Federal prosecutors allege that Bock was the ringleader of a $250 million scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs during the pandemic and that Said’s restaurant siphoned $16 million of that.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bobier took jurors back five years, when COVID started to wreak havoc across the country. Because schools and child care centers shut down the U.S Department of Agriculture changed rules for the federal child nutrition programs it oversees to ensure that children in need could continue to receive subsidized meals.
Bobier told jurors in his 45-minute opening statement that while many people were struggling, Bock spotted a money making opportunity. He said that overnight Bock “transformed a sleepy nonprofit into the engine for the largest COVID fraud in this country.”
She did this, the prosecutor explained, by recruiting others to open hundreds of fraudulent food delivery sites and forwarded reimbursement requests for millions of meals that were never served.
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Bobier said that Bock “was the gatekeeper to those federal program dollars,” and led a “brazen scheme” that in a matter of months siphoned $250 million dollars from taxpayers. He said people who wanted to operate meal sites had to pay bribes and kickbacks to Bock and others at Feeding Our Future.
Bobier said that Bock spent some of the stolen money on herself. He showed jurors a photo of Bock with a Lamborghini in Las Vegas, and said she used money meant for kids’ meals to pay the $2,000 daily rental fee.
Bock, 44, is among 70 people charged in the case since 2022. Said, 36, is a former co-owner of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis.
Feeding Our Future sponsored the Lake Street eatery as a meal site. And while other restaurants were struggling, Bobier said business at Safari boomed after it enrolled in the federal programs.
Bobier said that Said was one of the biggest players in the scheme. Investigators have said that Safari falsely claimed to have served as many as 42,000 children per week at the restaurant.
“Think about preparing a meal for everyone sitting at a sold-out Target Field. Think about the size of the kitchen that you would need,” Bobier said. “Of course it didn’t happen.”
Defense Attorney Ken Udoibok said that Bock should not be held responsible for the crimes of others. He named around a dozen other defendants who pleaded guilty and now appear on the government’s witness list.
Udoibok spoke for more than an hour in his opening statement. He said that his client stopped sponsoring sites operated by several of the cooperating defendants after she suspected fraud, but was rebuffed when she tried to report fake meal reimbursement requests to the Minnesota Department of Education. The agency disburses funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the state level.
“The evidence will show how much work Ms. Bock did to prevent fraud in this program,” he said.
Udoibok added that MDE failed to do its job and made the problem worse, and that Bock’s staff at Feeding Our Future failed her.
“She’s not Columbo watching every receipt with a magnifying lens,” and she relied on her employees to be truthful.
For his part, Said’s defense attorney Adrian Montez said in his brief opening statement that Said joined the food program to “feed people in his community,” and that all restaurants had to adapt to COVID.
“If you consider the evidence in light of the times that we were under, you will not reach the conclusion that the government wants you to reach,” Montez said.
After opening statements, prosecutors called their first witnesses. Postal inspector Matthew Hoffman told jurors about the day in January 2022 when federal agents searched Feeding Our Future’s offices .
The jury also heard from Emily Honer, who oversees the federal food programs at the state education department. Honer was a key witness in the first Feeding Our Future trial last year.
Honer said she became concerned when Safari — a small restaurant — started submitting monthly reimbursement requests for 150,000 meals, about the same number of meals that the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts each serve on a monthly basis.