The Trump administration has justified its ongoing immigration repression in Minnesota, citing the need to curb fraud and pointing to a growing scandal involving members of the Somali American community. However, prosecutors say that the mastermind of the state the biggest fraud scheme Until now, she was not Somali, but a white woman – 45-year-old Aimee Bock.
In an exclusive interview from her jail cell, Bock defended her behavior, admitted regret and argued that state officials she worked with should bear some of the blame. It was the first time Bock spoke publicly since she was arrested for her role in what prosecutors say was a $250 million, COVID-era effort to defraud a federal program to feed hungry children.
“I wish I could go back and do things differently, stop things, catch things,” said Bock, who was head of Feeding Our Future, the now-infamous nonprofit that signed up restaurants and caterers to receive taxpayer money to provide meals to children. “I thought we were doing everything in our power to protect the program.”
So far, prosecutors have brought charges 78 defendants connected to Feeding Our Future, with over 60 people pleading guilty or sentenced at trial. All are Somali American except Aimee Bock.
Aimee Bock in jail in Minnesota. / Credit: CBS News
(CBS News)
During a five-week trial last year, prosecutors alleged that Bock signed off on reimbursement requests for millions of meals that were never served. She was also accused of accepting bribes. Together, she and the operators of the mass site were accused of stealing tens of millions of federal dollars and spending a on luxury cars, real estate projects and vacations.
“This money was not taken to feed the children,” Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick said at the time. “It was used to fund his lavish lifestyle.”
A jury condemned her from all points of view. She now awaits sentencing and faces up to 33 years in prison. Evidence presented at trial included text messages in which Bock compared Feeding Our Future to the Mafia.
“The jury saw overwhelming evidence of what Bock knew,” lead prosecutor Joe Thompson said following the verdict. “She was at the head of the scheme from day one. She signed off on every fraudulent application that was submitted to the state of Minnesota.”
Bock told CBS News that he was neither the mastermind nor the mob boss.
“It was heartbreaking,” Bock said, describing the moment she heard the verdict. “I believe in responsibility. If I had done that, I would have pleaded guilty. I wouldn’t have gone to trial. I wouldn’t have put my kids and family through what I went through. I lost everything.”
Last month, a judge ordered him to quit over $5 million in proceeds from the scheme.
“We relied on the state”
Most of the millions federal officials seized from her sat in a bank account for the nonprofit, and Bock denied that he personally lived a lavish lifestyle. She downplayed the items FBI agents found in her home when they searched it in 2022 — a home she had lived in for more than a decade.
“They found minimal jewelry,” Bock said. “I think it was like two pairs of earrings, a bracelet, a watch. There was some money in there.”
Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, shared a video showing stacks of food at meal sites operated by Feeding Our Future contractors. Bock said he was doing everything in his power to root out fraud and had terminated agreements with dozens of entities he believed were cheating the system.
“I was the only one who stopped a claim and said it was fraudulent,” Bock said. “There are tens of millions of dollars in claims that we haven’t paid, that we’ve denied.”
The sudden growth of Bock’s organization was astonishing. In 2019, Feeding Our Future submitted $3.4 million worth of food requests. In 2021, it deposited nearly $200 million. Bock attributed the increase to looser guidelines during the pandemic, which allowed parents to pick up meals and bring them home. Asked if the volume increase raised red flags at the time, Bock said it was approved by Minnesota officials.
“We relied on the state,” she said, adding that local officials, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, often visited the meal sites. “We told the state that this site will operate at this address, this time, and this number of copies. The state will then tell us that it is approved.”
Omar has denied knowing that individuals were defrauding the food program and has previously condemned the misuse of funds. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz he drew widespread control for his handling of fraud in the state. But Walz defended his administration’s response, saying “we’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters” and accusing the Trump administration of “politicizing the issue to define programs that help Minnesotans.”
Udoibok, Bock’s attorney, said state officials at the time weren’t particularly interested in stopping the fraud because the nonprofit provided at least some sustenance to an important constituency during a time of significant instability.
“What is a lie is that they were overseeing this fraudulent activity at all times,” Udoibok said. “They wanted a scapegoat. She ran the only food program in the state, so they pinned her.”
A spokesman for Walz did not respond to a request for comment.
“No one wants to be labeled a racist”
Bock spoke to CBS News afterward the killing of Renee Goodas Minneapolis became a flash point in the administration’s effort to crack down on illegal immigration. According to Bock, some of the individuals picked up in ICE are now being held at the jail where she is being held until she is sentenced.
In a way, it’s possible to trace the origins of the current tensions in Minnesota back to Bock and her nonprofit. Good was killed by an ICE agent after the Department of Homeland Security stepped up thousands of staff in the state with a dual mandate to enforce immigration laws and help investigate fraud.
However, long before the issue of fraud became a galvanizing issue for justice – and fodder for conservative influencers — federal prosecutors in Minnesota had zeroed in on Bock. A lifelong Minnesotan, Bock earned a degree in elementary education and held roles in preschools and early childhood centers before starting Feeding Our Future in 2016.
“Our goal as an organization was to reach the children who were not being fed,” said Bock, who has two sons of her own. “There’s such a quiet need in Minnesota, these food deserts, where there’s just no access to healthy food for children’s nutritionists.”
The nonprofit became a so-called “sponsor” for two federal nutrition programs funded by the Department of Agriculture and overseen by the Minnesota Department of Education that paid for children’s meals during the school year and during the summer. When COVID hit, the USDA issued waivers that gave sponsors like Feeding Our Future more flexibility in how they distributed food.
“During COVID, for obvious reasons, parents were allowed to come and have meals,” Bock explained. “So suddenly we were able to reach more children. We were also able to deliver meals to homes.”
Restaurants and caterers, particularly from Minnesota’s large Somali immigrant community, were eager to sign up. Bock said her organization is well positioned to fill the need, but state education officials have been cautious about letting in some of the businesses that have applied.
“The Department of Education handled the applications,” Bock said. “They just weren’t processing them.”
As protests for racial justice swept the country following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Bock filed a lawsuit alleging that the state’s control of Somali applicants was discriminatory and deprived low-income and minority children of access to “desperately needy federal food programs.”
Asked how she thought state officials received the lawsuit, Bock acknowledged that “nobody wants to be labeled a racist.”
This aggressive advocacy won her praise from the tight-knit Somali community. A community leader told a local reporter that Bock is “a modern-day Robin Hood.”
Bock denied the lawsuit was a scare tactic. The parties reached a settlement in which the Minnesota Department of Education agreed to process applications to the meal program “reasonably promptly.”
“The idea that a state government is paralyzed and has to allow this level of fraud because they were afraid of what I might do in a lawsuit is absurd,” Bock said.
Years later, education officials told a state watchdog that “the threat of legal consequences and negative media attention” intimidated them into relaxing. However, Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) officials insist they acted, noting that they were the ones who referred Bock to the FBI in 2021.
“Criminals took advantage of the program even though MDE met or exceeded federal regulations,” the education commissioner wrote in a letter to the state watchdog. “At all times, MDE has made its best judgments about its oversight authority in the context of legal requirements and rejection.”
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