The leader of the non -profit organization found guilty of having siphoned $ 240 million in federal food aid

The chief of an anti-lucrative non-profit organization in Minnesota was sentenced to the American district district court on Wednesday of the entry into a cheeky program which collected more than $ 240 million in pandemic rescue funds with a network of false food kitchens that billed the government for 91 million meals.

The non -profit organization, Aimée Bock, 44, was sentenced by a jury of seven counts, including a fraud by wire and corruption. Another accused, said Salim – a 36 -year -old man who supervised one of the false kitchens – was found guilty of 20 chefs, also including wire fraud and corruption.

When Ms. Bock was charged in 2022, the federal prosecutors said that her program was the greatest known fraud against COVVI-19 government rescue programs.

At least 70 people have been charged in the program and more than 40 have already pleaded guilty or convicted. Last year, another case linked to the same scandal made a new national, when someone tried to bring a juror in a separate trial leaving about $ 120,000 in cash at a characteristic gift bag. Five people were then charged with corruption in this case.

After Wednesday’s verdicts were read, judge Nancy Brasel ordered that Ms. Bock and Mr. Said be in prison to wait for their conviction, according to a report by the courtroom by the Sahan Journal, a non -profit editorial room. The accusations bear potential sentences of more than a decade of prison.

The fraud regime has targeted two programs intended to feed hungry children, who were financed by the US Department of Agriculture but administered by the State of Minnesota. The system relied on non -profit groups called “sponsors” to be its childcare dogs. They were supposed to supervise individual kitchens and food sites and make sure they did not inflate the number of children they served.

When the Covid -19 pandemic struck, the federal government flooded money in the program – trying to reach children who were not at school and therefore unable to count on school lunches. The government has also softened surveillance, putting even more confidence in childcare dogs.

In this case, the prosecutors said that one of these daycares turned badly.

Ms. Bock led a non -profit sponsor called FEEDING OUR FUTURE. The prosecutors said that she had conspired with dozens of people to organize 250 nonexistent food operations around Minnesota and used her surveillance power to hide this network from the government. According to the law, the non -profit organization of Ms. Bock has obtained a reduction in money. Prosecutors said he had finally totaled $ 18 million.

Many false operations have submitted invoices for an incredibly large number of children: Mr. Said’s operation, for example, said that she had nourished 6,000 a day, more than all the children in her postal code. In another case, a man said that he had 5,000 children per night – of a place that turned out to be an apartment on the second floor.

Prosecutors said that Ms. Bock network had used the program’s product to buy houses, cars and commercial buildings. They said that Ms. Bock herself had sent money to her boyfriend at the time and used her to make trips to Las Vegas and rent Lamborghinis.

The state of Minnesota had become suspicious of the Ms. Bock network in 2020 and had tried to stop the payment of certain sites. But she continued the government of the state, saying that those responsible discriminated on her network because it served many African immigrants and their children. The state then called the FBI, which investigated and made a descent into the home of Mrs. Bock and the offices of the non -profit organization at the beginning of 2022.

In the days following this raid, Ms. Bock told the New York Times that she was not aware that there had been fraud in the operations she supervised.

If there was fraud, she said, then “each test we have in place and each protection that we have in place did not catch it. Is it possible? Absolutely. And if they have them on us, I will help them keep them responsible. ”

Ernesto Londoño Contributed reports.