Aimee Bock, Salim Said found guilty on all counts in Feeding Our Future trial
Bock, 44, of Apple Valley, was found guilty on all seven counts, which were:
Three counts of wire fraud
One count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
One count of conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery
One count of federal programs bribery
Said, 36, of Plymouth, was found guilty on all 21 counts he faced, which were:
Four counts of wire fraud
Nine counts of federal programs bribery
Five counts of money laundering
One count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
One count of conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery
One count of conspiracy to commit money laundering
It follows a trial that saw a jury subjected to five weeks of evidence of their involvement of a sprawling fraud scheme that has led to 70 people being charged, with the nonprofit Feeding Our Future at its center.
The pair will be jailed until they are officially sentenced, which will be set for a later date.
Bock's Feeding Our Future would distribute federal funds to food vendors, such as Said's Safari restaurant, with the intention they would provide meals to hungry kids during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But some vendors vastly inflated the number of children they said they were serving, maximizing the payouts from the federal government at a time the country was struggling through the pandemic.
Prosecutors argued that meal site providers would pay kickbacks to Bock and other Feeding Our Future employees so that they would inflate meal counts. Bock is estimated to have gained almost $2 million from the scheme, while Said raked in around $5.5 million via payments for a series of meal sites he set up through his restaurant, spending the money on luxury items such as cars and a mansion.
The investigation found that the Minnesota Department of Education received at least 30 complaints regarding Feeding Our Future or its sites starting in June 2018 – pre-pandemic – and continuing until December 2021, a month before the FBI conducted a series of raids on properties linked to the nonprofit.
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