Aimee Bock, Feeding Our Future’s former executive director, ran “the largest engine for COVID fraud in this country,” argued a federal prosecutor during opening statements Monday in Bock’s trial.
“Aimee Bock was at the top of it all,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bobier told the jury. “She was the gatekeeper, deciding who would be in on the scheme and who would not. She conspired with hundreds of people to do it.”
Bock is on trial with Salim Said, the former co-owner of Safari Restaurant. Bobier alleged Salim Said was “one of the biggest players in the scheme.”
Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, portrayed his client as a victim of dozens of fraudsters and a dysfunctional state government. He accused other defendants in the case of taking advantage of Feeding Our Future in order to obtain federal food-aid money meant to feed children, and said the Minnesota Department of Education is using Bock as a scapegoat because it mismanaged the distribution of those dollars.
“Aimee Bock is not big enough, powerful enough, connected enough to have controlled the government, the Legislature and the Minnesota Department of Education,” said Kenneth Udoibok, Bock’s attorney.
Udoibock did not say whether Bock will testify on her own behalf.
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Prosecutors allege that Bock and 69 other defendants stole $250 million in federal food-aid money meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bock is charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and bribery, and three counts of wire fraud.
Salim Said is charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, and conspiracy to commit money laundering; and four counts each of money laundering, wire fraud and federal programs bribery.
The Minnesota Department of Education distributed the federal money to Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit that has since closed. The organization then distributed the money to food venders and sites that were supposed to feed children ready-to-eat meals.
Prosecutors allege that some organizations reported serving more meals than they did in order to receive more money. Some never served any meals at all.
Bock allegedly took just over $1 million for herself by contracting with her boyfriend for maintenance work on Feeding Our Future’s office for $900,000. She also allegedly took a $310,000 kickback in exchange for enrolling a nonprofit into the federal food-aid program.
‘Brazen’ theft, prosecutor says
Bobier told jurors the $250 million fraud would not have happened if it weren’t for Bock and Salim Said.
“We’re here because they came up with a scheme,” he said. “One so bold, so brazen and so effective that in a matter of months, they stole a quarter of a billion dollars.”
Bobier promised jurors that over the course of the trial, prosecutors will present documentation of how Bock and Salim Said conducted the fraud. Prosecutors plan to present evidence from the FBI and call co-conspirators and Feeding Our Future insiders as witnesses to explain their involvement in the scheme. The documentation will include thousands of pages of invoices from Feeding Our Future that allegedly falsely reported the number of meals served to children, including fake names and ages that were generated for children that never existed.
Many of the 34 defendants who have already pleaded guilty in the case will testify at trial, Bobier said.
Prosecutors will also examine how Bock sued the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which oversees how the federal dollars in the food program are spent, in 2020 once the state agency started pushing back on Feeding Our Future. Bock, who alleged that MDE was discriminating against Feeding Our Future because of the large number of East African immigrants it claimed to serve, also attacked MDE in public and in the media, Bobier noted.
“Aimee Bock was making a lot of people a lot of money, and that made her a lot of friends,” Bobier said. “She rallied her friends — literally, they held a rally outside MDE with chants.”
Udoibok, however, said that Bock tried to prevent the fraud, and even reported several suspicions about Feeding Our Future’s contractors to MDE and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.
Udoibok cited more than a dozen defendants in the case who have pleaded guilty, and said Bock either cut off their funding from Feeding Our Future or was actively investigating them for suspected fraud before the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office charged them.
“The evidence will show how much work Ms. Bock did to prevent fraud in this program,” Udoibok said. “In fact the evidence will show she worked harder than MDE to the point where people threatened to sue her because she would not let them into the program.”
MDE failed to do its job to regulate the food program, and instead, allowed many food sites to enroll back into the food program through a rival organization after Bock shut them out from Feeding Our Future, Udoibok argued.
“MDE failed to do its job,” Udoibok said. “They made the problem worse. What is Ms. Bock supposed to do when she reports someone she suspects of fraud to MDE and they do nothing?”
Udoibok argued that many of Bock’s own employees conspired against her to commit fraud.
“She’s not Columbo watching every [transaction] with a magnifying lens,” he said. “There’s some amount of relying on responsibility, people’s obligation to the truth.”
Udoibok emphasized that Bock is 44 years old, has two sons, is car-less and lives with her parents because she can’t afford a place on her own.
“Is that someone who made millions?” he asked the jury. “No.”
Bobier portrayed Salim Said as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the scheme, alleging that businesses he worked with collected more than $30 million. That includes $12 million from Safari Restaurant, which he co-owned.
Salim Said spent much of the money on a south Minneapolis mansion to house one of his businesses, a $1 million house for himself and new Mercedes and Chevy Silverado vehicles, all paid with cash, Bobier said.
In a short opening statement, Salim Said’s attorney, Adrian Montez, told jurors to consider the time and setting of when the alleged fraud occurred.
“The starting point was early 2020, a time of complete unprecedented change for our society,” Montez said. “I ask you to think back to the time when this was happening.”
Montez added that “we wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t evidence of some crime,” but implored jurors to consider the evidence that will be presented, including the “names and players in this case.”
“If you consider the evidence in light of the times they occurred, you will not reach the same conclusion the government wants you to make,” Montez said.
The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday, and is expected to last roughly four weeks.
