Reporter covering Feeding Our Future scandal recounts turbulent trial, government impacts
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson (center) answers questions during a press conference at the Minneapolis federal courthouse on Wednesday in Minneapolis, addressing developments in the Feeding Our Future fraud case.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News
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A federal jury in Minneapolis has found two people guilty on all counts in the nation’s largest case of pandemic-era fraud.
Prosecutors say Feeding our Future founder Aimee Bock and former restaurant owner Salim Said led a scheme to defraud taxpayers of $250 million meant for child nutrition programs. The case had led to calls from state lawmakers to prevent this from happening again.
MPR News correspondent Matt Sepic was in the courthouse throughout the five-week trial and he joined Minnesota Now to talk about the case and its impacts at the state Legislature.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: Our top story this afternoon. A federal jury in Minneapolis has found two people guilty on all counts, in the nation's largest case of pandemic era fraud. Prosecutors say Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and former restaurant owner Salim Said led a scheme to defraud taxpayers of $250 million meant for child nutrition programs. The case had led to calls from state lawmakers to prevent this from happening again. MPR news reporter Matt Sepic was in the courthouse throughout this five week trial and joins us now. Thanks so much for being here, Matt.
MATT SEPIC: Hi, Nina.
NINA MOINI: What ultimately did the jury convict Bock and Said of doing?
MATT SEPIC: Well, the jurors found Bock guilty on all seven counts of wire fraud and federal programs bribery that prosecutors brought back in 2022. They convicted Said of the same charges. He faced 21 counts plus 5 counts of money laundering, so 21 counts in all. Those money laundering charges, by the way, were related to his purchase of $1 million home in Plymouth with a basketball court, as well as a Mercedes Benz and a new Chevy pickup truck that he purchased with proceeds from the fraud.
Yeah, there was a wider case that, as I say, goes back to 2022. 68 other people have been charged since then. Around half have pleaded guilty, and there was an earlier trial, as you may recall, last year, where a separate jury convicted five of the seven people who were on trial then.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, so much has been going on. All these cases have received a lot of attention, Matt. I'm curious to know how the defendants reacted to the verdict.
MATT SEPIC: Well, it was hard to see their faces. I was sitting directly behind them on the right side of the courtroom where all the reporters were over these five plus weeks of testimony. I didn't hear any audible reaction when Judge Nancy Brasel read the guilty verdicts from the jury. But I could see Bock crying quietly as she was saying goodbye to her attorney.
After Brasel ordered the two defendants detained pending sentencing yesterday, US marshals came into the courtroom, handcuffed them and took them into custody. Bock's attorney, Ken Udoibok, declined to comment immediately as he was leaving the courtroom. But he did tell other media, including KARE 11, later yesterday down in the lobby, that he thought the jury came back too quickly and said they likely made up their minds early on in the trial.
NINA MOINI: And what have you heard from prosecutors since the verdict?
MATT SEPIC: Well, the prosecution team held a brief news conference yesterday after the verdicts came back. Here's acting US attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick. She called the actions of Bock and Said reprehensible.
LISA KIRKPATRICK: During COVID, while so many were trying to be helpers, Bock and Said were thieves. They used a time of crisis as their golden opportunity to enrich themselves and their criminal partners, outlandishly so.
MATT SEPIC: We also heard yesterday from Joe Thompson. He runs the white collar and public corruption section at the Minnesota US attorney's office, and he's been the lead prosecutor on this case from the beginning. At the same news conference, he said that the scam really sullied Minnesota's national reputation for good governance.
JOE THOMPSON: Now, Minnesota has long been a state known for its good governance and its civic mindedness. A state renowned nationally for its high quality of life and its low crime. Sadly, in recent years, that reputation has changed. All too often, our state has been known for fraud. And the Feeding Our Future case has come to symbolize the problem of fraud in our state.
MATT SEPIC: That's lead prosecutor Joe Thompson.
NINA MOINI: And Matt, a lot happened during this trial too, correct? It was filled, really, with twists and turns. What were some of the standout moments to you?
MATT SEPIC: Well, it was a document heavy case, and jurors saw stacks and stacks of five and six and seven figure checks, all signed by Aimee Bock, to the various fraudulent food sites that Feeding Our Future sponsored. Lots of paper. There was even more fake meal count sheets used to support those claims, as well as lists of phony kids used to support the meal count claims.
Some of those names that popped up were pretty funny because they were obviously fake. Pewdify Knopp was one of them. Amen Love. Saw a lot more of that at the first trial last year. But you know, even though this was a document heavy case, as I say, there were moments of drama, you know? The prosecution, from the very beginning, argued that Bock set up Feeding Our Future with the intent of committing fraud, even going so far as to include a fake board of directors.
In the first week of the trial, we heard from a fellow from Saint Paul by the name of Ben Stayberg. He's a bartender on West 7th. He was listed as board president, and he didn't really know anything about the organization. It was really quite effective testimony because he was really just quite beguiled that he was even in federal court. He testified that Bock handed him what he thought was a petition about feeding kids, like around 2018. He signed it. Didn't really think much of it after that.
It was only years later, after the investigation became public in early 2022, the first media reports on it, Stayberg spotted his name in a new York times story about Feeding Our Future. That's when he realized he was board president. Jurors also heard some pretty compelling testimony from six defendants who pleaded guilty and cooperated in the hopes of receiving lenient sentences. There was a couple from Faribault, Lul Ali and Mohammad Hussein.
Ali ran a restaurant. Hussein had a nonprofit called Somali American Faribault Education. They pleaded guilty early on to stealing $5 million, and they talked about how a Feeding Our Future employee would drive down to Faribault every month, go to the restaurant, pick up $30,000 in cash as a kickback. And when he was there, he'd call up Bock on FaceTime and she'd verify the payments and talk about how to fill out fraudulent meal count sheets.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, so many people involved too, in this case. So much testimony, Matt.
MATT SEPIC: 70 defendants. Yep.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. But I know a lot of other people have been paying attention, lawmakers, government officials, to try to really study this case to see how these programs are so vulnerable to fraud.
MATT SEPIC: Yeah. I mean, these programs really go back to the late 1960s, the Great Society era of president Lyndon Johnson. And they were set up as typical government programs to reimburse child care centers and non-profits for feeding kids when they're not in school. So you think after school programs and summertime food programs. You go to a boys and girls club or a YMCA, you could get something to eat. They're geared toward children from low income families.
And the organizations submit claims for reimbursement, usually through a state agency. In Minnesota, that's the Minnesota Department of Education. Ultimately, the money comes from you and me, from taxpayers, via the US Department of Agriculture. Fraud hadn't really historically been a huge problem because it's really kind of a low dollar sort of program.
But when COVID hit, the USDA started waiving rules because all of those after school programs were closed. And one of those waivers, Nina, let restaurants participate. And that really opened the door to this scam, as prosecutors have been saying for the last three years. And you might recall, back in June, Minnesota's legislative auditor, Judy Randall, issued a really scathing report about MDE's oversight.
She said they failed to address limits to their authority years before the pandemic, and really approved Feeding Our Future's meals site applications despite ongoing concerns about fraud. And their only administrative review of Feeding Our Future found some pretty serious problems, even before the pandemic, but the agency never followed up.
NINA MOINI: And Matt, before I let you go, you know, taxpayers obviously don't like to hear that their dollars were being wasted with fraud. Who's weighing in at the state level? What have we heard from Governor Walz?
MATT SEPIC: Well, he spoke with Dana Ferguson and other reporters yesterday, one of our Capitol reporters, and gave his reaction and just a few minutes after the verdicts came back here in Minneapolis. And here's what Governor Walz had to say.
TIM WALZ: These are people that stole from us. We're trying to recoup as much as we can. And I think it sparked a needed conversation, bipartisanly, of how do we try and prevent these things. But I remind people on this, no one in state government was involved in any crime. We just need to make sure that we put up more firewalls, more security, more ability to make sure that these criminals aren't able to prey on this.
MATT SEPIC: And, Nina, lawmakers are debating various proposals at the Minnesota Capitol to add more safeguards against fraud in this and other programs.
NINA MOINI: Matt Sepic, thank you so much for your work. Really appreciate it.
MATT SEPIC: You're welcome.
NINA MOINI: Matt Sepic is a correspondent for MPR News.
MATT SEPIC: Hi, Nina.
NINA MOINI: What ultimately did the jury convict Bock and Said of doing?
MATT SEPIC: Well, the jurors found Bock guilty on all seven counts of wire fraud and federal programs bribery that prosecutors brought back in 2022. They convicted Said of the same charges. He faced 21 counts plus 5 counts of money laundering, so 21 counts in all. Those money laundering charges, by the way, were related to his purchase of $1 million home in Plymouth with a basketball court, as well as a Mercedes Benz and a new Chevy pickup truck that he purchased with proceeds from the fraud.
Yeah, there was a wider case that, as I say, goes back to 2022. 68 other people have been charged since then. Around half have pleaded guilty, and there was an earlier trial, as you may recall, last year, where a separate jury convicted five of the seven people who were on trial then.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, so much has been going on. All these cases have received a lot of attention, Matt. I'm curious to know how the defendants reacted to the verdict.
MATT SEPIC: Well, it was hard to see their faces. I was sitting directly behind them on the right side of the courtroom where all the reporters were over these five plus weeks of testimony. I didn't hear any audible reaction when Judge Nancy Brasel read the guilty verdicts from the jury. But I could see Bock crying quietly as she was saying goodbye to her attorney.
After Brasel ordered the two defendants detained pending sentencing yesterday, US marshals came into the courtroom, handcuffed them and took them into custody. Bock's attorney, Ken Udoibok, declined to comment immediately as he was leaving the courtroom. But he did tell other media, including KARE 11, later yesterday down in the lobby, that he thought the jury came back too quickly and said they likely made up their minds early on in the trial.
NINA MOINI: And what have you heard from prosecutors since the verdict?
MATT SEPIC: Well, the prosecution team held a brief news conference yesterday after the verdicts came back. Here's acting US attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick. She called the actions of Bock and Said reprehensible.
LISA KIRKPATRICK: During COVID, while so many were trying to be helpers, Bock and Said were thieves. They used a time of crisis as their golden opportunity to enrich themselves and their criminal partners, outlandishly so.
MATT SEPIC: We also heard yesterday from Joe Thompson. He runs the white collar and public corruption section at the Minnesota US attorney's office, and he's been the lead prosecutor on this case from the beginning. At the same news conference, he said that the scam really sullied Minnesota's national reputation for good governance.
JOE THOMPSON: Now, Minnesota has long been a state known for its good governance and its civic mindedness. A state renowned nationally for its high quality of life and its low crime. Sadly, in recent years, that reputation has changed. All too often, our state has been known for fraud. And the Feeding Our Future case has come to symbolize the problem of fraud in our state.
MATT SEPIC: That's lead prosecutor Joe Thompson.
NINA MOINI: And Matt, a lot happened during this trial too, correct? It was filled, really, with twists and turns. What were some of the standout moments to you?
MATT SEPIC: Well, it was a document heavy case, and jurors saw stacks and stacks of five and six and seven figure checks, all signed by Aimee Bock, to the various fraudulent food sites that Feeding Our Future sponsored. Lots of paper. There was even more fake meal count sheets used to support those claims, as well as lists of phony kids used to support the meal count claims.
Some of those names that popped up were pretty funny because they were obviously fake. Pewdify Knopp was one of them. Amen Love. Saw a lot more of that at the first trial last year. But you know, even though this was a document heavy case, as I say, there were moments of drama, you know? The prosecution, from the very beginning, argued that Bock set up Feeding Our Future with the intent of committing fraud, even going so far as to include a fake board of directors.
In the first week of the trial, we heard from a fellow from Saint Paul by the name of Ben Stayberg. He's a bartender on West 7th. He was listed as board president, and he didn't really know anything about the organization. It was really quite effective testimony because he was really just quite beguiled that he was even in federal court. He testified that Bock handed him what he thought was a petition about feeding kids, like around 2018. He signed it. Didn't really think much of it after that.
It was only years later, after the investigation became public in early 2022, the first media reports on it, Stayberg spotted his name in a new York times story about Feeding Our Future. That's when he realized he was board president. Jurors also heard some pretty compelling testimony from six defendants who pleaded guilty and cooperated in the hopes of receiving lenient sentences. There was a couple from Faribault, Lul Ali and Mohammad Hussein.
Ali ran a restaurant. Hussein had a nonprofit called Somali American Faribault Education. They pleaded guilty early on to stealing $5 million, and they talked about how a Feeding Our Future employee would drive down to Faribault every month, go to the restaurant, pick up $30,000 in cash as a kickback. And when he was there, he'd call up Bock on FaceTime and she'd verify the payments and talk about how to fill out fraudulent meal count sheets.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, so many people involved too, in this case. So much testimony, Matt.
MATT SEPIC: 70 defendants. Yep.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. But I know a lot of other people have been paying attention, lawmakers, government officials, to try to really study this case to see how these programs are so vulnerable to fraud.
MATT SEPIC: Yeah. I mean, these programs really go back to the late 1960s, the Great Society era of president Lyndon Johnson. And they were set up as typical government programs to reimburse child care centers and non-profits for feeding kids when they're not in school. So you think after school programs and summertime food programs. You go to a boys and girls club or a YMCA, you could get something to eat. They're geared toward children from low income families.
And the organizations submit claims for reimbursement, usually through a state agency. In Minnesota, that's the Minnesota Department of Education. Ultimately, the money comes from you and me, from taxpayers, via the US Department of Agriculture. Fraud hadn't really historically been a huge problem because it's really kind of a low dollar sort of program.
But when COVID hit, the USDA started waiving rules because all of those after school programs were closed. And one of those waivers, Nina, let restaurants participate. And that really opened the door to this scam, as prosecutors have been saying for the last three years. And you might recall, back in June, Minnesota's legislative auditor, Judy Randall, issued a really scathing report about MDE's oversight.
She said they failed to address limits to their authority years before the pandemic, and really approved Feeding Our Future's meals site applications despite ongoing concerns about fraud. And their only administrative review of Feeding Our Future found some pretty serious problems, even before the pandemic, but the agency never followed up.
NINA MOINI: And Matt, before I let you go, you know, taxpayers obviously don't like to hear that their dollars were being wasted with fraud. Who's weighing in at the state level? What have we heard from Governor Walz?
MATT SEPIC: Well, he spoke with Dana Ferguson and other reporters yesterday, one of our Capitol reporters, and gave his reaction and just a few minutes after the verdicts came back here in Minneapolis. And here's what Governor Walz had to say.
TIM WALZ: These are people that stole from us. We're trying to recoup as much as we can. And I think it sparked a needed conversation, bipartisanly, of how do we try and prevent these things. But I remind people on this, no one in state government was involved in any crime. We just need to make sure that we put up more firewalls, more security, more ability to make sure that these criminals aren't able to prey on this.
MATT SEPIC: And, Nina, lawmakers are debating various proposals at the Minnesota Capitol to add more safeguards against fraud in this and other programs.
NINA MOINI: Matt Sepic, thank you so much for your work. Really appreciate it.
MATT SEPIC: You're welcome.
NINA MOINI: Matt Sepic is a correspondent for MPR News.
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