Bock acknowledges fraud at Feeding Our Future, denies taking part
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Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock continues to deny that she took part in an alleged $250 million scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs. After taking the stand in her own defense, Bock faced rapid-fire questions Thursday from prosecutor Joe Thompson during cross examination.
He got right to the point and asked Bock, “You agree that there was fraud committed here?”
“There was fraud in the food program,” Bock answered.
“Millions worth?” Thompson asked.
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“It appears that way, yes,” she responded.
Bock is charged with seven counts, including wire fraud and federal programs bribery. She’s on trial with Salim Said, a co-owner of the former Safari Restaurant along Lake Street that allegedly stole $16 million by operating a fake meal distribution site and serving as a vendor to other sites set up to siphon cash.
While she admitted there was millions of dollars worth of fraud in the child nutrition programs, she said she didn’t know about it at the time, and when she discovered irregularities in documentation, she cut off payments to suspect meal sites and vendors.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have shown the jury stacks of six- and seven-figure checks — all signed by Bock — to meal site operators. They also showed screenshots from a state computer system that documented each time Bock submitted a claim for reimbursement. This system required Bock to verify that the claims were accurate under threat of prosecution.
In response to a question from Thompson about whether she certified every claim submitted to the nonprofit for reimbursement, Bock replied, “Yes, I signed it and there was no deliberate misrepresentation.”
Thompson also confronted Bock with meal count claims for Said’s Safari Restaurant that showed 5,000 to 6,000 children served there every day.
“That’s a pretty extraordinary number?” Thompson asked.
“Now yes, but not then,” Bock said.
Later Thompson asked, “There’s not a single high school in the state anywhere near that size is there?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Bock said.
She admitted requesting reimbursement for the meal sites, and writing all of the checks. She was the only person with control of the Feeding Our Future bank account.
But Bock said she had no knowledge of the large meal claims used to back those payments, and blamed her staff for not catching fraud. Many of the meal count sheets were organized in file folders that had Bock’s handwriting on the outside. Jurors saw these folders and other evidence repeatedly throughout the trial, and again during cross examination.
The government alleges Bock sold a non-functioning child care center in Burnsville to Said and his business partners for $310,000 to disguise a kickback from them, the basis of one of the bribery counts. Prosecutors say Said operated a phony meal site from there.
Bock denied that the sale of the child care center was a kickback from Said. But she admitted signing meal count forms from the site that purported to show 1,100 meals a day served there.
Additional cross examination is expected Friday, and closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.
