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Feeding Our Future CEO tries to get all evidence thrown out from search warrant [1]
['Deena Winter', 'More From Author', '- January']
Date: 2024-01
The woman that federal prosecutors put at the center of the Feeding Our Future scandal is trying to get evidence thrown out by contesting the search warrant and arguing that she received “administrative fees,” not illegal kickbacks as prosecutors allege.
Aimee Bock, founder and former executive director of the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, is charged with overseeing a $240 million scheme to exploit a federal child nutrition program during the pandemic. Hers is one of the largest cases out of about 60 people charged so far in the nation’s largest pandemic fraud case. Federal prosecutors have proposed a June trial.
Prosecutors allege Bock and Feeding our Future recruited people to open over 200 food distribution sites, which within days or weeks falsely claimed to serve meals to thousands of children per day despite having few, if any, staffers and little to no experience serving such meal volumes.
They allege Feeding Our Future pocketed more than $18 million in fees, bribes and kickbacks from people running sites it sponsored, and that Bock received a $310,000 kickback from Abdulkadir Nur Salah, co-owner of the Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis.
The nonprofit retained 10% to 15% of federal meal reimbursement payments, which prosecutors call kickbacks. But Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, contends the nonprofit was authorized by the Minnesota Department of Education and USDA Federal Child Nutrition Program to charge administrative fees of up to 15%.
Udoibok wrote in court documents that the FBI began investigating Bock after she refused to pay vendors and reported those she suspected were fraudulent.
Udoibok recently filed a motion seeking a Franks v. Delaware hearing — commonly called a Franks hearing — in an effort to get evidence thrown out by arguing the search warrant was based on false or misleading information.
FBI Special Agent Travis Wilmer got a search warrant for Feeding Our Future’s office and Bock’s home in January 2022. Udoibok claims Wilmer “created a misleading narrative” about payments to Bock by “classifying a single payment as a kickback rather than a collection of administrative fees.”
And even if it were a kickback, Udoibok argues “kickbacks are not per se illegal” in Minnesota or federal law, so there was not probable cause for a search warrant.
The Department of Justice has not yet filed a response in court, and did not respond to a request for comment.
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[1] Url:
https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/feeding-our-future-ceo-tries-to-get-all-evidence-thrown-out-from-search-warrant/
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