Federal prosecutors closed their case against Aimee Bock Tuesday with a simple message: Don’t overthink it.
“It’s been a long trial, but it’s not a complicated one. Trust your eyes. Trust your common sense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry Jacobs told jurors. “Aimee Bock and Salim Said took advantage of the COVID 19 pandemic to carry out a massive fraud scheme.”
The government made its closing argument after presenting jurors with more than five weeks of testimony, bank records and other evidence related to Bock’s leadership of Feeding Our Future when the nonprofit allegedly defrauded roughly $250 million from the federal government. Bock, who founded Feeding Our Future, was jointly tried with Salim Said, the former co-owner of Safari Restaurant who is accused of being one of the largest participants in the scheme.
Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, focused on a similarly simple message in his hour-long closing argument Tuesday afternoon. The case, Udoibok argued, centered around reports on the number of meals different businesses reported serving to local children. Bock didn’t write the meal counts, and had tried to stamp out fraud herself, he told jurors.
“You cannot hold Ms. Bock responsible for someone else’s actions,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
The alleged fraud involved several businesses — labeled as either food vendors or food sites — working with Feeding Our Future to report meal counts to the federal government, which then reimbursed them for the number of meals they reported serving. The money was meant to feed children ready-to-eat meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prosecutors allege that Bock, Salim Said and 68 other defendants reported more meals than were served in order to receive more money, which was used to pay for vacations, business ventures and luxury homes and cars, among other items.
When the world was trying to adapt to the pandemic, Bock and Salim Said saw opportunity, said Jacobs, who also delivered the prosecution’s closing argument in Salim Said’s case.
“While everyone else was trying to flatten the curve, they were trying to fatten their wallets. That’s what this is about. Aimee Bock and Salim Said committed fraud of epic proportions,” Jacobs said.
Jurors must decide whether prosecutors proved seven criminal counts against Bock and 20 against Salim Said. Both face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and federal programs bribery. Salim Said is also charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Jacobs encouraged jurors to think about the hundreds of pages of meal counts Feeding Our Future submitted on behalf of sites like Safari Restaurant. Many sites claimed to be feeding more than 2,000 meals multiple times a day, every day for months. Bock testified that she did not review meal counts that she submitted for reimbursement.
“Anyone with a brain could tell this wasn’t happening,” Jacobs said of the large number of meals reportedly being served. “Yet Aimee Bock kept submitting them month after month.”
Bock, dressed in a white cardigan, frequently shook her head as Jacobs laid out his closing arguments, and occasionally whispered to her paralegal.
Bock’s defense has said she was obligated to submit claims filed by food sites, which were required to work under a sponsor like Feeding Our Future in order to access federal funds distributed by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Prosecutors have shown how MDE tried to slow down approvals for sites working under Feeding Our Future, and how the department also raised issues with Feeding Our Future’s operations and reimbursement claims.
Udiobok argued that Bock was the one who tried to stop fraud at Feeding Our Future, and that she organized all of the boxes of evidence that FBI agents found during its raid of the nonprofit’s office in 2022. Bock had invited MDE to review the boxes, Udoibok argued, but MDE told her it didn’t have the authority to investigate.
“Is that the state of mind of someone who wants to deceive?” Udiobok said. “Gather everything incriminating against you? No.”
Udoibok questioned the credibility of six prosecution witnesses who testified that fraud occurred, saying that they had pleaded guilty to their roles in the case and are hoping for reduced sentences by cooperating in Bock’s trial. He recalled testimony from Lul Ali, a Faribault restaurant owner who testified that Bock “destroyed the community,” and testimony from Hanna Marekegn, who said, “Aimee Bock was a god.”
“Somehow, Ms. Bock has that power,” Udoibiok said sarcastically. “After all, she’s a god who can compel you to commit fraud against your will.”
Udoibok also argued that Bock had suspected many of the witnesses of fraud, and had cut them from the federal food program.
“I want you to remember that she acted in good faith,” Udoibok told jurors.
Jacobs told jurors not to think of the witnesses as victims, but to consider their anger against Bock. Before meeting Bock, he said, all of them had successfully built new lives in the United States after leaving a war-torn country as refugees.
“They were already living the American dream,” Jacobs said. “It should have been enough. What Aimee Bock sold them was a perversion of the American dream — to lie, steal and cheat to make money. And look at them now.”
He also called Bock the “queen of fake documents,” and hammered in on her testimony about Feeding Our Future’s board of directors.
Three board members testified that they didn’t know they were on the board and had never attended meetings. Bock testified that all three had agreed to serve on the board, and called their meetings “informal.” Although she refused to call the men liars, she suggested one of them may have forgotten what happened due to health issues. She admitted that formal board meetings did not occur, and said she entered times for meeting minutes based on when she filled out forms.
“Aimee Bock, the woman who had an excuse for everything, even she didn’t have an excuse for these fake documents,” Jacobs said.
Udoibok argued that the board of directors were irrelevant to the charges against Bock, emphasizing that not one of the board members submitted meal counts or received any money.
“The question is, ‘What has this got to do with anything?’” Udoibok said of the three board members. “Why was this necessary, other than to make Ms. Bock look like a terrible human being?”
Jacobs told jurors that Salim Said used money earned through submitting falsified reimbursement claims to shop at department stores, buy luxury cars and purchase a new $1.2 million home. Salim Said testified that he thought he was allowed to make a profit out of running his sites, and maintained that he bought and served large quantities of food.
“All these things would have been impossible to buy if he was actually feeding kids,” Jacobs said.
Many sites sponsored by Feeding Our Future were committing fraud, agreed Salim Said’s attorney, Adrian Montez, in his closing arguments. Witnesses who have already pleaded guilty in the case that testified at trial had tiny cafes that couldn’t prepare 2,000 meals a day. But Safari Restaurant was accustomed to serving massive amounts of food, and was equipped to do large-scale catering. When Salim Said joined the food program, he had the experience to serve food in bulk, Montez argued.
“They may not have been serving thousands of meals a day, but Salim Said was doing it at Safari,” Montez said.
Participants, including Salim Said, paid kickbacks to Bock and other Feeding Our Future employees so they would submit inflated meal counts, prosecutors argued. Jacobs reminded jurors of testimony about $310,000 that Salim Said’s company, Cosmopolitan Business Solutions, paid Bock for a daycare center that never had a state license.
The daycare’s address was then listed as a meal site operated by Feeding Our Future, and reportedly received food from Safari Restaurant. But the meal claims submitted from the site were fraudulent, prosecutors said.
“The daycare center didn’t exist. They didn’t own the building. It was just a bribe,” Jacobs said.
There would be ample evidence if thousands of kids were being fed daily at sites working with Feeding Our Future, Jacobs said. He pointed to testimony from a community service officer in Wilmar who said she didn’t recall seeing thousands of children picking up meals at a site there run by Stigma Free International, a nonprofit that Salim Said led.
“No kids got fed, and everyone got rich,” Jacobs said.
Salim Said was only responsible for meal counts from Safari Restaurant, Montez said. He invested in several other companies charged in the fraud scheme, like Brava Restaurant and Asa Limited, but he wasn’t involved in their operations and didn’t submit their meal counts, Montez argued.
Salim Said testified that his business partner, Abdulkadir Salah, instructed him to create Salim Limited, which prosecutors argued was a shell company used to launder money. Montez placed much of the blame on Abdulkadir Salah, arguing that he was Safari’s accountant and corrupted the company.
“You have not been given a full version of what happened here,” Montez said. “If you’re going to find Mr. Said guilty, you’re doing it based on a half-truth.”
Prosecutors took umbrage to Montez’s statement, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert ended the trial with a fiery rebuttal attacking Bock and Salim Said. He said their testimony on the witness stand amounted to the same kind of lies they told to cheat taxpayers out of $250 million. He in particular attacked Bock for blaming MDE, Feeding Our Future staff and her ex-boyfriend for the fraud.
“To all of that, I say this: Are you kidding me?” Ebert said in a raised voice while pointing at Bock, who shook her head no throughout his statements. “Are you kidding me? What complete and utter nonsense.”
Ebert told the jury that while the federal government has the power to conduct raids, cut off Feeding Our Future’s funding and prosecute the defendants, only the jury has the power to “bring this story to the ultimate conclusion.”
“At long last, close the book on the defendants’ godawful fraud,” Ebert said. “Speak the truth and find Aimee Bock and Salim Said guilty of every count in the indictment. Their long con has gone on far too long. Bring it to a short and swift end.”
Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday.
