A jury has been seated in Minneapolis for the federal trial of Aimee Bock, the founder of a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, who prosecutors allege orchestrated one of the largest pandemic-related fraud schemes in American history. The case centers on claims that Bock and dozens of co-defendants stole roughly $250 million from a federal child nutrition program designed to feed kids during the COVID-19 crisis.
The trial marks the culmination of a sprawling investigation that has already produced 30 guilty pleas, a juror bribery scandal, and serious political fallout in Minnesota. For conservatives who have long warned that the flood of emergency pandemic spending invited massive abuse, the Feeding Our Future case stands as Exhibit A.
A nonprofit’s explosive growth
The numbers alone tell a damning story. Feeding Our Future took in $3.4 million in federal funds in 2019. By 2021, that figure had ballooned to nearly $200 million. Federal prosecutors say the growth was not driven by legitimate need but by a systematic scheme to fabricate meal counts and pocket taxpayer dollars.
Prosecutors laid out their theory of the case in a recent filing previewing their evidence. They wrote that fraudulent meal sites “falsely claimed to serve thousands of children per day” while the money flowed to Bock and her associates…