The prosecutor calls to feed our future ‘money manufacturing engine’ as the trial of the founder opens – Albert Lea Tribune

By Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio News

The jury members listened to opening statements on Monday at the trial of feeding our future founder Aimee Bock and Salim said, one of their coacked. Federal prosecutors claim that Bock was the leader of a $ 250 million scheme to defraud the child nutrition programs financed by taxpayers during the pandemic and that restaurant of said said diverted $ 16 million of that.

The US prosecutor Dan Bobier resumed five years, when Covid began to wreak havoc throughout the country. Because schools and child care centers closed the US Department of Agriculture.

Bobier told the jury in his 45 -minute opening statement that, while many people were fighting, Bock saw an opportunity to earn money. He said that during the night Bock “transformed a sleepy non -profit organization into the largest covid fraud in this country.”

He did this, the prosecutor explained, recruiting others to open hundreds of fraudulent food delivery sites and refund requests sent for millions of meals that were never served.

Bobier said Bock “was the guardian of those dollars of the federal program,” and directed a “shameless scheme” that diverted $ 250 million from taxpayers. He said that people who wanted to operate food sites had to pay bribes and bribes to Bock and others to feed our future.

Bobier said Bock spent part of the stolen money in herself. He showed jury members a photo of Bock with a Lamborghini in Las Vegas, and said he used money for children’s meals to pay the daily rental rate of $ 2,000.

Bock, 44, is among 70 people Loaded in the case since 2022. He said, 36, he is a former co -owner of the Safari restaurant in Minneapolis.

Feeding our future sponsored Lake Street restaurant as a meal site. And while other restaurants were fighting, Bobier said the businesses in Safari retired after he registered in federal programs.

Bobier said he said he was one of the biggest players in the scheme. The researchers have said that Safari falsely said to have served up to 42,000 children per week in the restaurant.

“Think about preparing a meal for everything sitting in an objective field with exhausted tickets. Think about the size of the kitchen you would need, ”said Bobier. “Of course it didn’t happen.”

Defensor lawyer Ken Uudobok said Bock should not be responsible for the crimes of others. He called a dozen other defendants who declared themselves guilty and now appeared on the government list of witnesses.

Uudoibak spoke for more than an hour in his opening statement. He said his client stopped sponsoring sites operated by several of the cooperating defendants after suspecting fraud, but was rejected when he tried to inform requests for reimbursement of false foods to the Minnesota Department of Education. The agency disburses funds from the United States Department of Agriculture at the state level.

“The evidence will show how much work Mrs. Bock did to avoid fraud in this program,” he said.

Uudoibk added that MDE could not do his job and worsened the problem, and that Bock personnel to feed our future failed him.

“She is not columbo seeing each receipt with a magnifying glass”, and hoped that her employees were sincere.

For his part, Said’s defense lawyer, Adrian Montez, said in his brief opening statement that he said he joined the food program to “feed people in their community” and that all restaurants had to adapt to Covid.

“If you consider the evidence in the light of the times we were low, it will not conclude that the government wants me to reach,” Montez said.

After opening statements, prosecutors called their first witnesses. Postal inspector Matthew Hoffman told the jury about January 2022 when federal agents registered feeding the offices of our future.

The jury also listened to Emily Honer, who supervises federal food programs in the State Education Department. Honer was a key witness In the first diet in our future judgment last year.

Honer said he worried when Safari, a small restaurant, began submitting monthly reimbursements of 150,000 meals, approximately the same amount of meals as the school districts of Minneapolis and St. Paul serve each monthly.