Star Tribune
Feeding Our Future leader alleges a Minnesota Department of Education cover-up
Federally indicted Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock is alleging that the Minnesota Department of Education purposely misspelled words, mislabeled and deleted documents to prevent computer searches from revealing them in a civil lawsuit, violating state law.
The Education Department sued Bock, 43, of Apple Valley and the now-defunct St. Anthony nonprofit a year ago in Ramsey County District Court, seeking to recoup legal fees that the agency spent fighting a 2020 lawsuit from Feeding Our Future.
Bock — who is charged in the criminal case that prosecutors say totaled more than $250 million, one of the largest pandemic fraud cases in the country — filed new counterclaims last week alleging that employees deleted large amounts of data and “intentionally engaged in deceptive practices” by mislabeling documents and misspelling words to conceal documents from being included in the 2020 case.
Education Department officials declined to comment on the allegations, citing the pending litigation.
Among examples in Bock’s filing:
• One employee mentioned using a burner phone while other employees referenced Feeding Our Future simply as “F.”
• In a 2021 message, an employee wrote that they were trying to remove “F references so may not be an I T hit.” Another employee misspelled “stop pay” as “stoop pais.”
• “If you spell incorrectly it’s harder to see arch for stuff,” an employee messaged a colleague.
• One employee encouraged a colleague to discuss something over the phone instead of typing it. An employee admitted to deleting a document related to Feeding Our Future, though it’s unclear what the document was.
Bock, who is representing herself in the civil case and has denied any wrongdoing in the criminal case against her, is seeking an undisclosed amount in damages for the emotional distress she said the Education Department caused her as well as damages for “tortious interference with business relationships.”
Assistant Attorney General Christopher Stafford filed a court notice that the Education Department will seek to dismiss Bock’s counterclaims. A hearing is scheduled for April 3.
The lengths that government employees went to thwart public transparency is alarming, said Mark Haveman, executive director of the nonpartisan Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, a tax watchdog group based in St. Paul. He called the allegations “jaw dropping.”
“It raises red flags,” Haveman said. “I’ve never heard of burner phones being used and I’ve never heard of purposely misspelling things so that, in case a [data practices act] request comes up, it’s not going to catch it … It just suggests there are things they don’t want to come to light and I don’t think that exactly serves the purpose of good government.”
Attorney Jennifer Urban, who’s representing Feeding Our Future, not Bock, said Bock’s allegations were a surprise to the organization.
“We’re just kind of sitting and watching [Minnesota Department of Education] and Aimee go after one another,” Urban said.
State Republicans scrutinized the Education Department’s oversight of the meal programs in 2022, holding Capitol hearings questioning officials. The Legislative Auditor’s Office is conducting a special review of the Education Department’s oversight of Feeding Our Future, which was initially slated to be released last summer and is now scheduled to be released in March.
FBI investigation
Bock, her organizations and the Education Department have been entangled in lawsuits for about eight years over federally-funded meal programs, which reimburse nonprofits and schools for providing food to low-income kids after school or during the summer.
Bock, who is white, has accused the Education Department of discrimination, saying the agency targeted her for “going against the grain” by working with food sites run by immigrants.
Stafford wrote in court documents that “Feeding Our Future intentionally raised false allegations against [the Minnesota Department of Education], including baseless (but sensationalist) accusations of racial bias, and deployed a barrage of frivolous litigation tactics at strategic intervals to frustrate [the department’s] oversight.”
Feeding Our Future quickly grew to be one of the largest sponsors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meal programs in Minnesota, overseeing hundreds of food distribution sites during the pandemic, when federal waivers temporarily loosened in-person monitoring and oversight. Feeding Our Future went from receiving $300,000 in federal reimbursements in 2018 to more than $197 million by 2021.
The influx drew suspicion from the Education Department, which denied Feeding Our Future’s meal site applications and then terminated some meal sites. As a result, Feeding Our Future sued in November 2020.
A judge told the Education Department in April 2021 that he saw no regulation allowing it to stop paying Feeding Our Future and threatened to hold the agency in contempt of court if it didn’t act quickly on applications. The Education Department resumed payments to Feeding Our Future but also contacted the FBI to report its concerns after repeated complaints to the USDA.
The FBI launched the investigation in May 2021 and raided Bock’s home and more than a dozen locations in January 2022. After the FBI raids, Feeding Our Future told the department it would move to dismiss its lawsuit.
Last year, the Education Department sued Bock and Feeding Our Future, seeking to recoup its nearly $600,000 in legal fees, claiming Feeding Our Future’s “sham” 2020 lawsuit was just a distraction to keep the state from uncovering the fraud.
Last week, Bock claimed in her filing that the department’s lawsuit is “baseless” and “intended to deflect” from its legal violations. She reiterated her past arguments, including that the department never investigated her nonprofit’s claims as being potentially fraudulent. In fact, she credited herself with investigating and denying meal claims for many of the people who have recently pleaded guilty in the criminal case.
She disputed that the Education Department told investigators that no food was served at Feeding Our Future sites, countering that crowds to food sites were so large police were called to do traffic control.
Some defendants who have pleaded guilty to criminal charges have admitted to serving no food, while most have confessed to inflating meal counts.
Criminal case
Bock has pleaded not guilty to the charges filed in 2022. Prosecutors said she received kickbacks as part of a scheme of kickbacks and bribes among associates, who used the money to buy luxury cars and homes instead of feeding kids.
In December, her attorney Kenneth Udoibok said in court filings that Bock didn’t receive kickbacks and, even if she did receive kickbacks, kickbacks aren’t inherently fraudulent or illegal. He said Feeding Our Future charged an administrative fee to its sites, which is legal. He sought a hearing to challenge the facts in the 2022 search warrant.
Of the 70 people charged so far, 17 have pleaded guilty. The first trials are slated to begin this spring.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
