Prosecutors in Aimee Bock’s trial spent Tuesday highlighting how she allegedly profited from a federal food-aid program by selling a daycare company and by soliciting donations from people who worked with her nonprofit.
Prosecutors allege that all of Bock’s transactions were fraudulent. They showed text messages she sent to her live-in boyfriend at the time, Empress Malcolm Watson, that allegedly showed how she profited. Bock texted Watson that she made money by selling a “book,” which was described by an FBI witness as “policy procedure” and by Bock’s attorney as a book of policy guidelines for daycare work.
“I literally just deposited $78,000 into the account for the book I sold,” she wrote in December 2021. “I made that in two weeks. I know how to make money.”
Bock collected a total of $103,000 from the donations and policy procedure sales, prosecutors argued. She allegedly received an additional $310,000 from the sale of her daycare company.
The $103,000 went to School Age Consultants, a company Bock created shortly before collecting the money, prosecutors argued. She allegedly kept the $310,000 for herself.
In one text, she suggested that she needed money to pay for expenses for her lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Education. She sued the department in 2020 when, suspicious of fraud, it slowed down processing applications for businesses that wanted to enroll as food sites through Feeding Our Future.
“Right now I need to make this money and win this lawsuit,” Bock wrote in another message that month to Watson. “So that’s what I’m doing.”
Bock, the former executive director of Feeding Our Future, is on trial as the alleged gatekeeper of a $250 million scheme that’s been described as the largest COVID-related fraud in the nation.
Bock is charged with 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 food-aid funds through the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Feeding Our Future then distributed those funds to food vendors and food sites, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Several organizations 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.
Bock is being jointly tried with Salim Said, who formerly co-owned Safari Restaurant, one of Feeding Our Future’s largest food sites.
Bock held a meeting in Feeding Our Future’s office in December 2021 with several food site operators and food providers that her organization sponsored. She asked for donations at the meeting, prompting several food site operators to oblige.
That same day, Bock sent Watson a message on Facebook.
“The amount of money i’m [sic] going to make tomorrow you should be [expletive] happy,” she wrote.
Checks flowed into the bank account for School Age Consultants, testified FBI Forensic Accountant Lacramioara Blackwell. In almost all cases, they totaled $2,800 each, and were marked for either “donations” or “policy procedure.”
Blackwell testified that Bock was referring to the “policy procedures” when she texted Watson about “the book I sold.” No such policy procedures existed, Blackwell testified.
Prosecutors used another part of the same text message to suggest that Bock spent food-aid money on personal items. In the exchange, Bock scolded Watson for how he was handling their purchases.
“You have said a million times you were selling the nova [sic] and it sits in storage costing money every month,” she wrote, referring to a Chevy Nova. “Same with the Porsche. I bought a car that I don’t even know where it is or have a key to.”
Prosecutors also showed the jury VIP tickets Bock and Watson purchased to Graceland, the Memphis museum and home of Elvis Presely. They also presented a picture of Bock and Watson touching one of Presley’s guitars.
Daycare sale
One key component of prosecutors’ case against Bock involves the $310,000 sale of Bock’s daycare company, the Learning Journey, to Abdulkadir Salah, another Safari Restaurant co-owner. Prosecutors allege that the daycare company never existed, and that the sale was really a kickback payment to Bock for enrolling Safari in the food-aid program. The $310,000 transaction is the basis of bribery charges against Bock.
Prosecutors showed the jury evidence that Learning Journey was never licensed by the state as a daycare provider. They also showed evidence that Feeding Our Future was using Learning Journey’s address as a food site, claiming to serve close to 2,000 children a day.
Bock sold Learning Journey in August 2021 to Cosmopolitan Business Services, the company that ran Safari Restaurant. Salim Said, acting as a witness for Cosmopolitan Business Services, signed the purchase agreement for Learning Journey.
The purchase agreement broke down the sale price as $75,000 for Learning Journey’s equipment and $235,000 for its customer base. Blackwell, however, testified that the company had no equipment because the building was empty when the FBI raided it in January 2022. She also said it had no customer base because it was never in operation.
“There was no customer base, no reputation, and there was no goodwill,” Blackwell testified. “They didn’t establish a business.”
After the sale, a company connected to Safari Restaurant called Bet on a Better Future took over the food site associated with Learning Journey’s address, and began claiming to serve meals and collecting federal food-aid money.
During cross-examination, Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, emphasized that Bock founded Learning Journey in 2019, one year before the COVID pandemic and before Feeding Our Future’s work in the federal child nutrition program rapidly grew.
Under questioning from Udoibok, Blackwell testified that she did not physically visit Learning Journey’s location.
Udoibok asked Blackwell if her knowledge of the company’s lack of equipment came from a photo of the building taken during the January 2022 search.
“That and the financials,” Blackwell said.
“Financial records show financial transactions, but they would not show inventory?” Udoibok asked
“I don’t believe so,” Blackwell said.
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case against Bock and Salim Said on Wednesday. Attorneys for Bock and Salim Said have not said whether their clients will testify, or whether they will call witnesses.
