Feeding Our Future
March 19, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Attorneys in the Feeding Our Future trial of Aimee Bock and Salim Said made their closing arguments to the jury yesterday. This is the second trial of defendants charged in the massive $250 million fraud, the biggest Covid fraud discovered in the United States. Of the 70 defendants indicted, 37 have pleaded guilty. Trials of other defendants are scheduled through the rest of this year. This trial is of particular
»
March 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday’s trial proceedings opened with an argument about whether defendant Salim Said could play a campaign video featuring Ilhan Omar in Said’s defense. The video shows Omar talking up Safari restaurant inside the restaurant in Somali and bringing meals outside to waiting cars. Lead prosecutor Joe Thompson objected to Omar’s part in the video as an attempt to graft her prestige as a member of Congress onto Said’s defense. Judge
»
March 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
There is of course a political angle to the massive Feeding Our Future fraud. How to get at it? I emailed questions to Attorney General Keith Ellison and Governor Tim Walz on March 3. I wrote Walz at the email address I found for his press team: “I am covering the Feeding Our Future trials in federal court for the Power Line site. I am working on a story about
»
March 16, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Judge Nancy Brasel plans to submit the charges against Aimee Bock and Salim Said to the jury on Tuesday. When the jury returns with its verdict I hope to write an overview of the case for readers outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area who may find the case of interest. What happens when you cross a third-world tribal culture with a local Democratic establishment? It’s an interesting question. You can
»
March 15, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Lead prosecutor Joe Thompson completed his cross-examination of Aimee Bock yesterday morning. His cross-examination was something of a master class in the art. Bock came across as a practiced liar — “practiced in the art of deception,” to quote the Rolling Stones song. It’s hard to tell, but in my judgment Thompson’s art exceeded Bock’s. I think the jury saw through her blatant lies and formulaic responses. Thompson’s cross made
»
March 14, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Defense counsel Ken Udoibok concluded his direct examination of Aimee Bock at trial yesterday morning and lead prosecutor Joe Thompson commenced his cross-examination. Bock is the ringleader of the $250 million Covid fraud with which she and a total of 70 defendants were charged in September 2022. Bock’s is the second Feeding Our Future fraud case to come to trial. This one includes 21 charges against Salim Said, one of
»
March 13, 2025 — Scott Johnson
When trial resumed yesterday after a four-day weekend break, Aimee Bock continued her testimony on direct examination under the questioning of defense attorney Ken Udoibok. Bock testified to the Feeding Our Future management structure, to her responsibilities as executive director of the organization, and to the claims process. She methodically presented the whole thing as a sort of well-oiled machine. Bock’s taking the stand should be the most dramatic moment
»
March 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Bill Glahn is the former research consultant for the Minnesota House of Representatives and former Deputy Commissioner of Commerce in the Pawlenty administration, among other items on in an impressive résumé. He now serves as a fellow with the Center of the American Experiment, where he has put his expertise in state government to work tracking the scandals that have dogged the Walz administration and cost the state hundreds of
»
March 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Judge Brasel held a pretrial hearing in another serious multiparty criminal case from 9:00 until about 10:45 yesterday morning. The case allegedly involves members of Minneapolis’s Highs gang. It’s charged as a RICO case. Earlier this week Judge Brasel sentenced one of the co-defendants in the case — Deandre Poe, a.k.a. “Squizzy” or “Fat Squad” — to 168 months in prison. On his way out of court after the hearing
»
March 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson
After a day off on account of inclement weather, trial resumed yesterday with the (continued) direct examination of FBI forensic accountant Pauline Roase. Ms. Roase is the second of three FBI forensic accountants to testify in the trial. She was followed at the end of the day yesterday by Sonya Jansma, who is the last witness the government will call before resting its case later today. Let me digress for
»
March 5, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The prosecution is wrapping up its case against Feeding Our Future founder/executive director Aimee Bock and fraudster Salim Said this week. It has methodically proved up a colossal fraud perpetrated on all of us who fund the United States Department of Agriculture’s child nutrition programs by the Feeding Our Future nonprofit and the numerous “sites” it sponsored to participate in the program during the Covid era. Feeding Our Future founder
»
March 4, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The Feeding Our Future fraud trial resumed yesterday with the continued direct examination of FBI Special Agent Travis Wilmer. Agent Wilmer was one of the lead investigators of the fraud. Prosecutor Dan Bobeir reviewed a mountain of evidence making out the fraud with Agent Wilmer in the course of his examination this past Thursday and yesterday. The highlight of his testimony came with the introduction of text messages sent between
»
March 1, 2025 — Scott Johnson
If you conduct a Google search on “Putify Nop,” Google will correct it to “purify mop” and provide a mind-bending selection of items that answer to the description. However, in his testimony at the Feeding Our Future fraud trial this week, IRS Special Agent Joshua Parks cited “Putify Nop” as one of the absurd “names” of fictitious children submitted to Feeding Our Future by “sites” allegedly providing free meals under
»
February 28, 2025 — Scott Johnson
For this series of reports on the current Feeding Our Future fraud trial in Minneapolis I am using a thumbnail photograph of Guhaad Hashi or Guhaad Hashi Said. Lifted from his old Facebook page, Hashi’s s image instructs Somalis to keep their lips sealed about Ilhan Omar. Indeed, that’s how I first heard about him in the course of my initial reporting on Omar’s marriage to her brother. I was
»
February 27, 2025 — Scott Johnson
We are ending week three of the prosecution’s case against Aimee Bock and Salim Said in the second Feeding Our Future fraud trial. The leading quality of the evidence so far is the grossness of the fraud that funneled $250 million from the Covid-era school meal program into the pockets of a cast of mostly Somali thieves. Bock ran the Feeding Our Future nonprofit that “sponsored” restaurants and nonprofits to
»
February 26, 2025 — Scott Johnson
While attending the current trial in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud case yesterday, we received notice from the Office of the United States Attorney that another defendant had bitten the dust. The text of the press release sent out by the United States Attorney follows the conventions that rule the public discussion of such cases by reference to the defendant as “a Minneapolis woman.” Sad to say, the defendant
»
February 25, 2025 — Scott Johnson
FBI Special Agent Jared Kary led the investigation into the massive $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud. Feeding Our Future “sponsored” each of the sites operated by various restaurant owners and nonprofit principals charged in the indictment. Among the 70 defendants charged in the indictments, 34 or so have pleaded guilty. The case represents the largest Covid fraud uncovered so far. This one took place under the auspices of the
»
