‘I didn’t have a clue,' Feeding Our Future leader says when asked about fraud

A Burnsville day care center that never opened took center stage during Thursday’s cross-examination of Aimee Bock, the Feeding Our Future leader accused of orchestrating a $250 million scam to rip off a federal meals program.

According to federal prosecutors, the sale of the center for $310,000 to Bock’s alleged accomplices was a “bribe” and one of the main ways she profited from the scam. On Thursday, prosecutors provided the jury with a possible motive for the deal, which took place in August 2021.

That same month, Bock exchanged a series of texts with a co-worker in which she expressed concerns about one of the buyers of the day care, Salim Said, her co-defendant in the trial and co-owner of Safari Restaurant, whose owners hauled in more than $30 million through the program.

Bock texted the co-worker that Said “hates white people and has shit to take me down.”

Joe Thompson, the government’s lead prosecutor, told the jury that Bock had something Said wanted, a “lucrative” meal site in Burnsville that hauled in more than $2 million in 2020 and 2021 — more than the vast majority of sites overseen by Feeding Our Future. The food site operated at the same location as her dormant day care.

“When you ‘sold’ that day care, what you actually sold was a food site, correct?” Thompson asked.

“No,” said Bock, who insisted she received a “fair market price” for the property.

“There was no day care was there?” Thompson asked.

“Incorrect,” Bock responded.

“Did it have a day care license?”

“No.”

“Were there parents? Customers?”

“No, it was not open.”

“You didn’t own the building.”

“No.”

“So no license, no customers, no operations?”

“It was not nonexistent,” Bock said. “It was unlicensed ... but it had all of the approved space, all of the approved equipment.”

“It was a food site?

“Correct.”

The testy exchange was one of many between Bock and Thompson on Thursday, as the two sparred for hours over Bock’s alleged role in the scheme and her legal duty to certify the accuracy of claims as the ultimate gatekeeper at Feeding Our Future.

Prosecutors allege Bock was the ringleader of the large pay-for-play scheme to steal federal reimbursements meant to fund meals for low-income children after school and during the summer. Instead, they say, defendants used the money to buy luxury homes, cars and other items to enrich themselves.

As a “sponsor,” Feeding Our Future oversaw paperwork and federal reimbursements to nearly 300 food distribution sites.

According to testimony during the trial from FBI accountants, Bock received $1.9 million in the scheme, including the money she funneled to her former boyfriend. Though several witnesses have testified that Bock solicited monthly kickbacks in order to approve their inflated invoices, Bock denied any wrongdoing Thursday.

Bock was cross-examined by prosecutors after portraying herself in prior testimony as a tough watchdog of taxpayer funds, a fraud buster who booted dozens of sites from her organization over suspicious invoices and other “red flags.”

Thompson took aim at that image Thursday, showing the jury a series of what FBI agents have called “ridiculous” reimbursement records from sites that claimed to feed thousands of children a day.

FBI agents have testified the meal numbers were patently fraudulent, and anybody with Bock’s experience in the food program should have rejected them. Many of the invoices were submitted by site operators who have since pleaded guilty to inflating their numbers to get rich off the program.

Though she said Thursday that she certified that all of the claims she submitted to state regulators were accurate, Bock acknowledged she sought and obtained payment for millions of dollars she now realizes were fraudulent proceeds.

“There was no deliberate misrepresentation,” Bock testified.

Prosecutors provided records showing that Bock was personally emailed many of the inflated meal count records. But she maintained that she rarely looked at the documents, leaving that work to employees who handled the reimbursement process.

“I did not track that data,” she testified, adding later, “I wrote the checks.”

Thompson asked Thursday if Bock saw anything suspicious at a meal site that opened in 2020 and quickly claimed to serve meals to nearly 5,000 children per day, with virtually no variation in the daily meal counts — a “hallmark” of fraud, according to FBI agents.

“I do not,” Bock testified.

“I don’t think they are suspicious based on themselves,” she said.

Thompson noted some of the fraudulent activity took place at sites directly supervised and staffed by Feeding Our Future, including the Burnsville site she sold to Said and his partners. Thompson noted Bock and other workers at the nonprofit personally signed forms indicating the site served as many as 1,900 meals per day.

Thompson also said the site supervisor in Burnsville was the wife of Abdikerm Eidleh, a former administrator at Feeding Our Future whom Bock has blamed for much of the fraud and called a “horrible person.” Eidleh, who has been charged with federal programs bribery for allegedly shaking down several site operators, fled the U.S. and remains a fugitive.

Back records shown to the jury revealed Eidleh received more than $300,000 from the Burnsville site by acting as an alleged vendor and providing meals to the site.

“I didn’t have a clue ... that he was involved in that business,” Bock testified, noting that she also didn’t discover Eidleh’s wife was the site supervisor until it came up during the trial.

“You act like you didn’t have anything to do” with the Burnsville site, Thompson said.

“I didn’t,” Bock testified. “I didn’t go there very frequently at all.”

Earlier in the day, Bock also was asked about a text message in which she discussed scaring a critic of her nonprofit by calling in her lawyer, telling a friend, “We may have become the mob.”

“The mob part was a sarcastic joke,” Bock testified. “Because we addressed problems aggressively. So like the mob, they have problems, they are known to attack and eliminate that problem. When we had problems, we would aggressively attack and eliminate.”

Bock’s cross-examination will continue Friday. Attorneys said they expect to give their closing arguments in the trial on Monday.