Feeding Our Future head Aimee Bock convicted on all fraud charges
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A federal jury in Minneapolis Wednesday convicted Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and former restaurateur Salim Said on charges of wire fraud and bribery in a trial that followed a lengthy investigation into an alleged scheme to fleece taxpayers out of $250 million by exploiting government child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jurors deliberated about five hours before finding Bock, 44, guilty on all seven counts. They convicted Said, 36, of all 21 charges, which also included five counts of money laundering.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ordered Bock and Said jailed and did not set a date for sentencing. "The fraud scheme was based on deception,” and the pair could use similar deception to flee now that they're facing "a significant sentence,” Brasel said.
Bock cried as United States marshals handcuffed her and took her and Said into custody.
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Bock’s attorney Ken Udoibok declined to comment as he left the courtroom. He later told KARE-11 and other media the quick verdict indicated to him that jurors likely made up their minds early on.
‘The shame of Minnesota’
Federal prosecutors described Bock and Said as people who saw an opportunity to cash in as the COVID crisis gripped Minnesota and the nation.
"The jury saw overwhelming evidence of what Bock knew," lead prosecutor Joe Thompson told reporters following the verdicts.
Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Lisa Kirkpatrick called the actions of Bock and Said "reprehensible … They used a time of crisis as their golden opportunity to enrich themselves and their criminal partners.”
In the overall fraud case, 70 people including Bock and Said were charged. A little more than half have pleaded guilty. The trial of Bock and Said was the second to follow the sprawling investigation by the FBI, IRS, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service into fraud in the nutrition programs.
A separate federal jury in June convicted five of seven defendants at a trial that was rocked by allegations of attempted jury bribery.
"The Feeding Our Future case has come to symbolize the problem of fraud in our state,” Thompson said Wednesday. “It has become the shame of Minnesota. Hopefully today’s verdict will help turn the page on this awful chapter in our state’s history.”
Promises of an ‘American Dream’
During 20 days of testimony over more than five weeks, the jury of six women and nine men heard from 32 prosecution witnesses including the FBI agents and forensic accountants who began investigating Feeding Our Future in 2021.
After reading the jury instructions on Tuesday, Brasel dismissed two men and a woman who had served as alternate jurors.
From the first week of the trial, prosecutors crafted a narrative that Bock organized Feeding Our Future to facilitate fraud, particularly by creating a phony board of directors.
Benjamin Stayberg, a St. Paul bartender listed in the nonprofit’s documents as board president, testified on Feb. 11 that he met Bock at work through mutual friends and signed what he thought was a petition from her about feeding children. It was several years later, after the investigation became public, that Stayberg, 42, realized that he was leader of the board of directors.
Two other purported board members, Jamie Phelps and John Senkler, testified on Feb. 26 that they too had little to no knowledge of Feeding Our Future and had never attended board meetings, though minutes of those meetings seized from the nonprofit’s headquarters during a series of coordinated raids on Jan. 20, 2022 listed the men as having been present.
During her own testimony on March 14, Bock said “it was an informal board that had informal meetings.”
The jury also heard testimony from six operators of restaurants and smaller nonprofits who pleaded guilty to taking part in the scheme and cooperated with prosecutors in the hopes of receiving lenient sentences.
Mohamed Ali Hussein, who operated a nonprofit called Somali American Faribault Education, testified on Feb. 27 that Bock promised him the “American Dream” in exchange for filling out fraudulent meal reimbursement forms.
Hussein, along with his wife, Lul Bashir Ali, pleaded guilty to stealing more than $5 million from the food programs and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the hopes of receiving lenient sentences.
Hussein, echoing Ali’s earlier testimony, recounted how Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Eidleh would come to Ali’s restaurant to pick up $30,000 in cash kickbacks every month. Hussein said that during each of these visits, Eidleh would contact Bock via FaceTime, and Bock would confirm the payments.
Eidleh, 41, was also charged in the case but fled to his native Somalia about two months before the FBI raids.
A withering cross-examination
Against the advice of her attorney, Bock testified in her own defense. The decision to waive her Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination opened her to withering cross examination from Thompson, an assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor in the case.
Bock admitted there were millions of dollars worth of fraud in the child nutrition programs. But she denied knowing about it at the time. Bock said when she found irregularities in documentation, she cut off payments to suspect meal sites and vendors.
Said also testified, saying his south Minneapolis restaurant prepared and delivered meals for children when parents could not pick them up. Under questioning by Thompson, Said agreed that the program made him and his partners rich.
Thompson asked Said about the multiple companies he set up to operate food sites and to collect checks from Feeding Our Future. FBI forensic accountants testified previously that this was a ruse to hide stolen money.
Said called the cash transfers between his companies “investments.”