I attended the Feeding Our Future trial from opening statements on Monday through adjournment for the weekend yesterday at noon. This is the second of the cases to come to trial. The indictment charged a total of 70 defendants with fraud, but this trial features the all-stars: ringleader Aimee Bock, founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, and Salim Said, co-owner of two grossly fraudulent sites, Safari Restaurant (just off Lake Street in Minneapolis) and ASA Limited (a small storefront at a Maplewood strip mall). Two of the co-defendants in this case pleaded guilty on January 28.
As it turns out I have connections to the lawyers on both sides of the case. My cousin Jill is married to Harry Jacobs, one of the prosecutors. I think Harry has put in a good word for me with the rest of the prosecution team.
My wife taught attorney Ken Udoibok at William Mitchell College of Law. Ken tells me we had him over to our house along with her other students that year. Ken is a Nigerian immigrant; English is his second language, as it is for my wife. He is a warm and engaging gentleman. Ken represents Bock.
My wife also worked with attorney Mike Colich when they were both prosecutors at the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office early in their careers. I have known Mike since then. He has had a long and successful career in criminal defense. He is impossible to dislike. I think even the prosecutors like him. (I think they like Ken too.) Mike and his colleague Adrian Montez represent Said.
The government is methodically proving the case against these defendants. On Monday and Tuesday Emily Honer testified. Honer is the Director of Nutrition Program Services for MDE. On the one hand, she deals with the Department of Agriculture as the regulator and funder of the school lunch programs. On the other hand, she dealt with program sponsors such as Feeding Our Future, whose responsibility was to monitor sites participating in the school lunch program.
By October 2020, Safari claimed to serve breakfasts and lunches for roughly 6,000 kids seven days a week. Honer testified that she suspected MDE was being taken for a ride by Bock and the sites that Feeding Our Future sponsored, but didn’t get around to calling on the FBI until an unspecified date in April 2021, some $250 million too late.
Honer essentially testified that she felt her hands were tied in processing the grossly fraudulent claims submitted by Feeding Our Future for sites such as Safari and ASA. The prosecutors don’t want to make MDE look bad, but MDE looks bad in a “you have got to be kidding me” kind of way.
Where was Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison? I wonder. He is conspicuous by his absence. Perhaps we will see him turn up as a witness in the case before it is over.
FBI Special Agent Jared Kary testified on Wednesday and Thursday. Kary testified that the FBI formally opened its investigation of the case at the end of April. Kary initiated the investigation based on a tip from an unnamed participant and on Honer’s call in April 2021. Over the ensuing months the FBI gathered bank records and other documents to get a handle on the massive fraud.
In December and January 2022 the FBI installed pole cameras to surveil sites including Safari and ASA Limited. Safari was claiming to serve 3500, 5000, and then 6000 lunches a day, but it looked like sleepy time on the Safari and ASA videos. Again, the reaction of a sane man might have been “you have got to be kidding me.”
On January 20, 2022, the FBI executed search warrants on suspects around the Twin Cities in the largest such operation in Minnesota history. At that time the investigation went public. Indictments were handed up the following September.
On cross-examination yesterday Ken Udoibok asked Agent Kary if he would be surprised to learn that Ilhan Omar served meals to kids at Safari. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Kary responded.
Thought balloon: “One gross fraud meets another.”
Omar posted video of her appearance at Safari in early May 2020 on Facebook — see it here.The Center of the American Experiment’s Bill Glahn previewed this aspect of the case in his October 16, 2022 post “Feeding Our Future: the Ilhan Omar/Safari Restaurant connections.” Bill observed (citations omitted):
As the first search warrant in the case documents, by July 2020, Safari was claiming to feed 5,000 children per day out of the restaurant, seven days a week. By March 2021, they had upped the claim to 6,000 per day (p. 23). As the indictment documents, “In all, the defendants claim to have served more than 3.9 million meals to children at the Safari Restaurant site between April 2020 and November 2021.” That time period would have covered the date of the…video.
Bill drily commented: “Apparently, Rep. Omar visited the restaurant during a lull.”
Tracy Koppen was the last witness called yesterday. She runs the school lunch program for the St. Paul Public Schools. With 33,000 students, it’s the second largest school district in the state.
Feeding the students at 60 buildings out of a central kitchen is a massive operation. Her testimony conveyed the practical requirements of serving thousands of students a day. It’s not a moneymaking venture. Given the reimbursement rates, it breaks even in good years. The implication was that Safari and ASA — they lacked “the necessities” and submitted blatantly fraudulent claims, or something along the line of “you have got to be kidding me.”
The trial resumes next Tuesday.
UPDATE: See also Bill’s timely report: “Pleading the Fifth? MN Dept. of Ed. refuses to answer questions at Feeding Our Future hearing.”
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