The Justice Department on Thursday accused 47 people of looting $250 million from the federal child nutrition program by fraudulently claiming to feed thousands of poor children daily in Minnesota during the pandemic. Instead, they allegedly spent the money on cars, houses, jewelry, travel and real estate in the United States, Kenya and Turkey in what Attorney General Merrick Garland said was “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme” yet.
Normally, schools run the child nutrition programs and are reimbursed for each meal they serve. When the pandemic struck in 2020 and schools were closed for weeks at a time, USDA waived some of the requirements for participation in the nutrition program. It also allowed restaurants to join the program and allowed food to be distributed to children outside of school.
In a statement, the government said Aimee Bock, the founder and leader of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, oversaw a massive fraud scheme carried out at feeding sites that operated under the organization’s sponsorship. The more than 250 sites claimed to feed thousands children daily throughout the state. Feeding Our Future rocketed from handling $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019 to nearly $200 million in 2021.
“To carry out the scheme, the defendants also created and submitted false documents,” said the Justice Department, listing false invoices for food purchases, fraudulent meal-count sheets and fake attendance lists with the names and ages of children purportedly fed. Shell companies were created to hide kickbacks and bribes.
When the “brazen plot” began to unravel under scrutiny by state officials, the operators of Feeding Our Future sued the state Department of Education for discrimination because it rejected their applications for feeding sites, said the Justice Department. The 47 defendants were indicated on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. Bock was changed with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal programs bribery and conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery.
Feeding Our Future disbursed $240 million in child nutrition funds and also received $18 million in administrative fees, said the government.
“The charges amount to one of the largest federal fraud cases ever brought in Minnesota,” said the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Feeding Our Future shut down operations in late February, a few weeks after the FBI raided its offices and froze its bank accounts. The newspaper cited Bock as saying Feeding Our Future at one point distributed 100,000 meals a day to Minnesota children.
An attorney for Bock said “she did nothing worthy of a criminal indictment,” reported Minnesota Public Radio. U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger told Minnesota reporters that three of the 47 defendants were expected to plead guilty and authorities had seized more than $50 million in assets related to the alleged crimes.