(The Center Square) – A lawsuit in the Ramsey County Second Judicial Court claims Minnesota Department of Education employees “deleted large amounts of data and intentionally engaged in deceptive practices.”
The education agency sued nonprofit Feeding Our Future over a scheme from May 2020 through January 2022 in which three entities – ThinkTechAct Foundation, Empire Cuisine & Market and Empire Enterprises – collaborated to steal $250 million of Federal Child Nutrition Program money meant to feed hungry children and instead spent it on luxury cars, homes, and more.
In the lawsuit , FOF claims MDE violated federal and state law.
The lawsuit alleges education employees “intentionally mislabeled documents, misspelled words to prevent their conversations from being found through IT searches, and they intentionally refrained from documenting their decisions.”
MDE Director of Communications Kevin J. Burns told The Center Square that the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit claims “MDE’s instant message system is replete with examples of MDE employees discussing deleting references to FOF in their documents, misspelling words, and using vague document titles and descriptions to hide the documents from FOF. For illustrative purposes, MDE admitted to removing references to FOF in some documents so they would not be detected in an IT search:”