Feeding Our Future trial: Tracing the money, trying to prove kickbacks
Feeding Our Future trial: Tracing the money
In late 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Aimee Bock leased a space in a Burnsville strip mall. Documents shown to her jury show she intended to open a daycare. She never did.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - In late 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Aimee Bock leased a space in a Burnsville strip mall. Documents shown to her jury show she intended to open a daycare.
She never did.
The alleged kickback schemes
What we know:
In 2021, documents show that Bock sold the business to others involved in the Feeding Our Future meal fraud, including to Salim Said, the man standing trial alongside her.
The sale price was $310,000. The sale agreement shown in court listed the value based on its assets and its community goodwill and reputation.
An FBI forensic accountant testified that since it was leased space and never operational, there were no assets or business reputation.
Federal prosecutors believe this was one way that money paid fraudulently to meal site operators and vendors made its way back to Bock.
A GoFundMe campaign
What else to know:
Jurors also saw a GoFundMe campaign that Bock started in the fall of 2021, titled "Feed MN." Claiming to help children, refugees and immigrants, it raised $74,000 fairly quickly.
Going down the list of donations, the FBI accountant noted they all came from those involved in Feeding Our Future, another alleged scheme to funnel money back to Bock.
‘I know how to make money’
More checks:
In December 2021, Bock called a meeting of meal site operators and food vendors, during which she solicited donations. The checks shown to jurors, many of them for $2800, were noted as being donations to pay Feeding Our Futures lawyers or to pay for a policy and procedure handbook Bock had written.
In a Facebook Messenger conversation the day before the meeting, Bock wrote to her boyfriend that "the amount of money I’m going to make tomorrow, you should be f*** happy."
The checks were written to School Age Consultants, which Bock opened about a week earlier. The government alleges this was a shell company.
In another Facebook message about a week after the meeting, Bock wrote to her boyfriend again.
"I literally just deposited $78,000 into the account for the book I sold. I made that in two weeks. I know how to make money."
Bock’s defense attorney maintains that she did not know about the fraud that was happening and that her own employees lied to her.