Minneapolis (Somalia Today) – A US judge on Thursday sentenced Aimee Bock, the former head of the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future, to nearly 42 years in prison for leading a massive pandemic-era fraud scheme that stole federal money meant to feed children.
Bock, 45, received a 500-month sentence, equal to 41 years and eight months, from US District Judge Nancy Brasel in Minneapolis. The court also ordered her to repay about $243 million to the federal government.
The sentence is the harshest punishment so far in the Feeding Our Future case, which prosecutors have described as the largest known fraud against US pandemic relief programmes.
A jury convicted Bock in March 2025 of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy after prosecutors said her organisation submitted false claims for meals that never reached children.
The US Justice Department said Bock and co-defendant Salim Said falsely claimed to have served 91 million meals and fraudulently obtained nearly $250 million in federal funds.
Pandemic fraud
The scheme exploited emergency changes to federal child nutrition programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the government loosened rules to allow food distribution outside schools and through a wider network of providers.
Prosecutors said Feeding Our Future became the centre of a network of fake meal sites, inflated claims and kickbacks.
They said those involved spent money meant for children on real estate, luxury vehicles, travel and other personal expenses.
“This was a vortex of fraud, and you were at the epicentre,” Judge Brasel told Bock during sentencing, according to reports from the hearing.
Federal prosecutors had sought a 50-year sentence. They argued that Bock was not a passive administrator, but the central figure who enabled and expanded the fraud.
Her defence asked for a much shorter sentence, saying prosecutors had unfairly cast her as the mastermind. Bock apologised in court and said she accepted responsibility, according to US media reports.
Somalis under scrutiny
The case has carried particular weight in Minnesota’s Somali American community, one of the largest Somali communities in the United States.
Bock is white, but many of those charged or convicted in related Feeding Our Future cases are of Somali descent. Most are US citizens.
That has turned the case into a political flashpoint.
Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly used Minnesota fraud cases to attack state leaders and sharpen criticism of Somali immigrants and Somali Americans.
Community advocates have warned that the scandal should not be used to stigmatise an entire community.
They say those who committed crimes should face justice, but collective blame risks deepening suspicion against Somali families, business owners and nonprofit workers who had no role in the fraud.
For Somali Americans in Minnesota, Bock’s sentencing is therefore more than the end of one criminal case.
It is also part of a wider debate over public trust, state oversight and the political cost of fraud in social programmes.
Wider fraud probes
The Feeding Our Future investigation has led to charges against more than 70 people and at least 65 convictions in overlapping food fraud cases.
On the same day Bock was sentenced, US authorities also announced new charges against 15 people accused of defrauding Minnesota Medicaid and other welfare programmes of about $90 million.
The new charges widened scrutiny of state-administered social services and added pressure on Minnesota officials, who have faced criticism over how the state monitored Feeding Our Future before federal raids in 2022 exposed the scale of the fraud.
State auditors found that the Minnesota Department of Education had received complaints about Feeding Our Future. But oversight failures allowed the organisation to continue receiving federal reimbursements.
Federal officials said they were expanding efforts to recover stolen funds and pursue fraud across public programmes.
