Hanna Marekegn got greedy.
After months of participating in a scheme to defraud the federal government through Feeding Our Future, Marekgen submitted a $3.15 million invoice claiming to have provided roughly 42,000 meals a day to a food shelf in Brooklyn Center in August 2021.
“This is more than greed, you know, this is wrong,” Marekegn testified about her actions.
That drew the attention of then-Feeding Our Future executive director Aimee Bock, Marekgen testified in federal court Tuesday. Bock confronted her about the invoice, Marekegn said, and the two had contentious meetings where Bock said the amount was too large.
Bock, accused of leading what prosecutors say was the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme in the nation, asked Marekgen to meet at a Northeast Minneapolis coffee shop, Marekgen said. Bock asked her not to bring her cell phone or wear her Apple Watch at the meeting, Marekegn testified. There, Bock agreed to submit the invoice to the state if Marekegn would pay her a kickback — half the amount in cash.
Getting that much money — more than $1.5 million in cash — seemed impossible, Maregken said. She declined Bock’s proposal, and the invoice was never submitted to the state.
Just a few months before, Bock seemed invincible and Marekegn was receiving more than $600,000 per month submitting fraudulent invoices that claimed she was serving roughly 4,000 meals a day at Brava Cafe, her small coffee shop in Minneapolis.
In June 2021, Bock and Feeding Our Future won a key legal ruling in a lawsuit she had filed against the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) accusing the state of discriminating against her group because it worked with East African business owners. The state had attempted to crack down on the exponential and suspicious growth of organizations enrolling in a federal child nutrition program that distributed federal dollars to local groups that were supposed to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A judge ordered the state to continue processing applications for businesses working with Feeding Our Future to enroll in the program.
Bock’s victory was celebrated at a Somali banquet hall in Minneapolis; everyone thought she was untouchable, Marekegn testified.
“Aimee Bock was a god,” Marekegn said.
Bock is on trial, facing three counts of wire fraud and one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and bribery.
The alleged fraud involved Feeding Our Future receiving federal funds through MDE. Feeding Our Future then distributed those funds to food vendors and food sites, such as Marekegn’s Brava Cafe, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.
Several organizations in the money chain reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did, or simply never served any at all, in order to receive more federal reimbursement dollars, according to prosecutors.
Marekegn pleaded guilty in October 2022 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and awaits sentencing. She received more than $7 million from the federal nutrition program, and claimed to serve more than two million people.
‘We knew everything was wrong’
Marekegn moved to Minneapolis from Ethiopia when she was 15. In 2010, she launched a food truck serving vegan Ethiopian food. But she only worked the truck in the summer, and opened Brava Cafe in an office building off East Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis to have business year round, she testified.
But the building was quiet, and she rarely had more than 10 customers a day.
“It was a struggling business,” she said.
When COVID hit, those struggles deepened, she said. But in September 2020, her friend, Anab Awad, told her about the federal food program and introduced her to Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Eidleh. Anab Awad pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in November 2022, and admitted to defrauding the government for more than $9 million. Abdikerm Eidleh was indicted in the case, but fled the country before charges were filed. He remains at large.
Marekegn testified that Abdikerm Eidleh recruited her into the program, and said she could do 5,000 meals a day out of her small kitchen. She thought the number was too high, she said, but didn’t want to argue too much. Eventually, they agreed she would claim to serve 4,000 meals a day.
On September 24, 2020, Marekegn said she started cooking food, “but not very much.” She tried to give it away at her cafe, but few meals were ever distributed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson asked why she claimed to serve 4,000 meals a day.
“Greed,” Marekegn testified. “You don’t think right. I needed it, the money.”
By early 2021, Marekegn was receiving roughly $600,000 a month in reimbursements from the federal government. She paid five percent of that money to Eidleh, typically in the form of cashiers checks.
Marekegn first met Bock in the spring of 2021, when MDE started cracking down on Feeding Our Future and blocked for-profit restaurants like Brava Cafe from participating in the federal food program. Bock told them to call the crackdown discrimination, and put pressure on MDE by lobbying local politicians to help Feeding Our Future, Marekegn testified. She said a state senator was at the Feeding Our Future office, and helped the group call Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office.
Marekegn admitted that she knew she was committing fraud.
“We knew everything was wrong, but we just keep doing it because we wanted to get the money,” Marekegn testified.
Marekegn said she met with Bock after her restaurant was barred from serving as a food site. They agreed Marekegn would become a food vendor, supplying food to nonprofit sites like Shamsia Hopes in Brooklyn Center and House of Refuge in St. Paul.
Marekegn’s claims grew as a vendor, until her August 2021 claim seeking $3.15 million for House of Refuge, which led to the conflict with Bock. House of Refuge’s director, Sharon Ross, has pleaded guilty.
Bock’s attorney Kenneth Udoibok pressed Marekegn on her meeting with Bock, asking why she didn’t bring her attorney, and why Bock would ask her to get $1.5 million in cash. He asked why Marekegn continued to participate in the food program through another sponsor organization, Partners in Nutrition.
Marekegn said she stopped participating in the fraud when the program ended in November 2021.
Bock had cash, jewelry at home
Vendors and site hosts would go to Feeding Our Future once a month to collect checks, several witnesses testified Tuesday. Participants drove luxury vehicles and lived large, Marekegn said.
Federal agents found similar signs of luxury when they searched Bock’s home in January 2022, finding cash and gold jewelry scattered all over her bedroom.
Bock’s home in Rosemount had walls adorned with children’s art and photos inside of frames with words like “family” and “love” written in cursive, according to photos shown to a federal jury Tuesday. Upstairs in her bedroom, Bock’s nightstand and safe was stuffed with hundred dollar bills, designer handbags and a gold chain spelling out “Aimee.”
In the garage, a white Mercedes Benz still had a temporary license plate tag from a dealership.
