On her last day of testimony, Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock denied enjoying trips to Las Vegas with her then-boyfriend, and argued that witnesses who said they never served on her board actually did serve on her board.
It was an extraordinary scene as Bock provided a barrage of explanations Friday distancing herself from any alleged wrongdoing as the accused ringleader of a $250 million fraud scheme.
At one point, the prosecution confronted Bock with evidence from one of its witnesses, bartender John Senkler, who testified earlier at trial that he never served on Feeding Our Future’s board.
“He actually said he agreed to be on the board,” said Bock, who was the organization’s executive director at the time. “He’s also had some pretty severe medical issues since, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his memory isn’t great.”
Bock first took the witness stand last week in her federal fraud trial, testified all of this Wednesday and Thursday, and completed her testimony Friday morning combative cross-examination from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson.
Thompson started his questioning Friday by asking Bock about the $1 million Feeding Our Future paid Bock’s then-boyfriend, Empress Malcolm Watson, for what she said was $900,000 in contracting work and $100,000 for a full-time salary for remodeling the organization’s office.
Thompson pointed out that Bock told Sahan Journal in 2022 that Feeding Our Future had solicited three or four bids for the contracting work, that the nonprofit’s board of directors chose Watson’s company for the project and that she had recused herself from the process.
Bock testified Friday that it was hard to find contractors because many were working on projects during the COVID pandemic.
“No one wanted to do the job for $1 million?” Thompson asked.
“No, they told me the elevator was a big hazard,” Bock testified, arguing that the building had two inoperable elevators at the time, and that potential contractors didn’t want to haul tools and sheetrock to Feeding Our Future’s third-floor office.
Bock testified many times Friday that she was satisfied with Watson’s work, but prosecutors showed a text message she sent Watson contradicting her statements.
“I have to tear out the [expletive] sheetrock and then pay to have it redone,” Bock wrote Watson. “I told you the plumbing needed to be done first.”
Bock testified that the text message referred to work in the basement of her home, and not the Feeding Our Future office.
Thompson then delved into Bock and Watson’s trips to Las Vegas and their lavish spending on car rentals and jewelry, which prosecutors allege was funded by federal food-aid money Watson received from Bock. Thompson emphasized that Bock told Sahan Journal that she never went on a trip to Vegas in 2021 that is linked to the alleged fraud.
Bock maintained that that was accurate, but did not deny that she had never accompanied Watson on other trips to Vegas.
Thompson showed pictures of Bock and Watson in Vegas. In one photo, Bock and Watson stand next to a rented Rolls Royce with clamshell doors. Another photo features a rented Lamborghini; Watson gives the camera the middle finger with both hands.
“He was making fun of me because I stopped to throw up,” Bock said of the photo with Watson’s hand gestures.
Bock testified that Watson rented the cars, that she didn’t know which bank account he used for the expense and that she didn’t personally enjoy riding in the cars with him because she got carsick.
“You drove around with him?” Thompson asked.
“I didn’t want to,” Bock responded. “I was getting physically sick.”
Bock testified that she spent most of that vacation “drinking dramamine and sleeping” because of carsickness.
Discrepancy over board of directors
Thompson noted that all three of Feeding Our Future’s board members testified earlier in trial that they never knew they were on the nonprofit’s board, never served on it and never attended a meeting. He then questioned Bock repeatedly about several board meeting minutes featuring the witness’ names, and in some cases, signatures. The documents indicated that the three men attended meetings, voted and made motions.
Bock maintained that they served on the board. She earlier testified that she wasn’t surprised that they were distancing themselves from Feeding Our Future, given the negative media coverage, but she also said she was not accusing them of lying on the stand.
Thompson asked about Senkler, the bartender who Bock listed as Feeding Our Future’s board secretary.
“I don’t even know what a motion is,” Senkler testified earlier at trial.
Bock then blamed Senkler’s “severe medical issues” for his testimony.
Thompson showed Bock board meeting minutes reporting that board members made motions and voted on specific dates at specific times. He said prosecutors reviewed all of Bock’s work emails, and found that none showed that she communicated with any of the board members.
Bock responded that she had “informal” meetings with all of the board members about board decisions. Why then, Thompson asked, did she make board minutes stating that Senkler attended meetings and made motions on specific dates?
Bock said the timestamps reflected when she sat down to record her informal conversations with board members.
“There was roll call in the sense that I had met with and had conversations with everyone who was involved with the company,” Bock said.
Thompson recalled Bock’s earlier testimony that she was a “stickler for the rules.”
“All that rigid adherence to the rules appears to have not applied to the board meetings of your nonprofit, Feeding Our Future, is that right?” he said.
Bock explained that the board meetings occurred during COVID when people didn’t want to congregate in person. Thompson noted that the year on the minutes in question was 2019, before COVID existed.
Thompson pointed out that board meeting minutes also showed the signature of Ben Stayberg, another bartender who Bock listed as president of Feeding Our Future’s board. Bock said she didn’t forge Stayberg’s signature, and that she was not sure who did. She acknowledged that filled out the rest of the form, which was typed.
“That’s not my writing,” Bock said of his signature. “It doesn’t slant that way.”
Bock conceded that she wrote to her accountant and on her tax forms that the board members spent a minimum of five hours a week doing work for Feeding Our Future, and that this wasn’t necessarily accurate.
“This is how I was told to write it,” Bock testified.
“Someone told you to list fake board members with fake hours?” Thompson asked.
“They are not fake board members,” Bock responded. “Those numbers are estimated, and yes, I’ve been told that five hours is normal.”
Bock is charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and bribery. Prosecutors allege that she and 69 other defendants stole $250 million in federal food-aid money meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bock allegedly made $1.9 million in the fraud, partially by paying her boyfriend for maintenance work on Feeding Our Future’s office.
Salim Said, who formerly co-owned Safari Restaurant, is being jointly tried with Bock, and announced at the end of her testimony Friday that he plans to testify in his own defense. Safari was one of Feeding Our Future’s largest food sites.
The alleged fraud involved Feeding Our Future receiving federal funds through the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Feeding Our Future then distributed those funds to food vendors and food sites like Safari, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did, or never served any at all, in order to receive more federal reimbursement dollars, according to prosecutors.
Staff writer Andrew Hazzard contributed to this report.
