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Feeding our Future ringleader Aimee Bock sentenced
Aimee Bock, the ringleader in the massive Feeding our Future fraud scheme, was sentenced Thursday to more than 41 years in prison. FOX 9's Mary McGuire has the story.
(FOX 9) - The former owner of Gurley Deli in Maplewood has been sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for his role in claiming to be feeding children while stealing COVID-19 pandemic-era funds as part of the larger Feeding our Future fraud.
Maplewood deli owner Feeding our Future sentencing
What we know:
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed pleaded guilty in March 2025 to wire fraud and money laundering for his role in the $250 million COVID-19 pandemic-era fraud scheme that exploited federally funded child nutrition programs.
The United States Attorney’s Office initially argued for a sentence of 57 months, while his defense sought an agreement that would have had him serve only 24 months.
As part of the sentencing, Ahmed will also owe more than $2.2 million in restitution.
Dig deeper:
According to court documents, under the sponsorship of Feeding our Future, Ahmed, now 41, of Minneapolis, claimed to be operating a food nutrition site out of his deli located in a strip mall, from September 2020 through January 2022.
Documents say that Ahmed registered ASA Limited LLC with the Minnesota Secretary of State, and submitted his application through Aimee Bock, Feeding Our Future’s executive director.
Within three weeks of creating the ASA Limited site, "Ahmed and his co-conspirators falsely claimed to be serving meals to 2,000 or 3,000 children each day, seven days a week," documents say.
By the numbers:
From September 2020-2021, Ahmed claimed to have served more than 1.6 million meals at the location.
Prosecutors say that Ahmed submitted multiple fake attendance rosters that included both names and ages of attendees of an "after-school" program that was hosted at the location.
When examining the documents, investigators later determined that the lists of names and ages were on spreadsheets that contained "a formula that inserted a random number between seven and 17 in the age column for each ‘child’ on the list," according to court documents.
According to court documents, rather than using the funding on meals for children, Ahmed kept "hundreds of thousands of dollars to himself," including transferring fraud proceeds to a shell company, and purchasing the former location of Kelly’s 19th Hole — a bar and restaurant in Brooklyn Park. He also bought a 2022 Mini Cooper.
As part of the scheme, Ahmed was found to have also paid more than $49,000 in bribes and kickbacks to Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee, in exchange for sponsoring and facilitating participation in the Federal Child Nutrition Program.
In total, documents say that Ahmed and co-conspirators charged a total of $7.3 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program claims through Feeding our Future.
Big picture view:
At the time, Ahmed became the 45th conviction tied to the scheme that ultimately stole $250 million from funding claims.
Currently, 66 people have been convicted for their roles in the fraud, while more than 80 have been either indicted or charged in connection with the scheme.
Widely considered the leader of the scheme, a jury found Aimee Bock guilty on all seven counts she faced, including charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and federal programs bribery – ultimately sentencing her to 500 months, or more than 41 years, in federal prison.
The Source: Previous FOX 9 reporting on the Feeding our Future fraud in Minnesota.