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.
A former Medtronic consultant received an 18-month prison sentence this week for his role in a scheme linked to the $1.6 billion acquisition of an Israeli medical device company in 2018.
A federal jury in February convicted Doron “Ron” Tavlin, 69, of Minneapolis, of one count of conspiracy to engage in insider trading and 10 additional counts related to securities fraud. That same jury found David Jay Gantman, 58, of Mendota Heights, not guilty of all charges against him. A third defendant — Afshin “Alex” Farahan, 57, of Los Angeles — pleaded guilty in 2022 and has yet to be sentenced.
“His crime was cynical and brazen. It was also reckless,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert wrote in a memo calling for a 3-year prison term. “Tavlin’s conduct had the potential to blow up a deal that a team of executives and financial advisers had been diligently negotiating for months.”
Tavlin is now scheduled to self-surrender Jan. 5 to begin his prison term, which will be followed by 320 hours of community service.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Tavlin learned about a secret, pending acquisition by Medtronic of Mazor Robotics, where he worked as vice president of business development, in 2018. Tavlin also previously worked as a consultant to the Ireland-based Medtronic, which also has a headquarters in Fridley.
Tavlin illegally tipped off Farahan, his friend, about news of the imminent acquisition and told him to keep the news secret. Farahan knew the deal would likely result in a boost to Mazor’s stock price and quickly bought more than $1 million of the company’s stock throughout August and September 2018. Medtronic announced plans to acquire Mazor, which specialized in robotics for spinal procedures, in September 2018 and the deal closed three months later.
Prosecutors said Farahan netted more than $245,000, and Gantman made $255,000 in profit by selling the securities quickly after the deal was publicized. Farahan paid Tavlin for the secret information about the pending deal — including a $25,000 kickback about a year later —according to prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank, who sentenced Tavlin Monday, also ordered Tavlin to pay a special assessment fee of $1,100 – or $100 per each count. Frank did not impose a fine.
Star Tribune
Charges detail assault in Minneapolis that led to shooting rampage, killing one in Kandiyohi County
Another friend of the ex-girlfriend arrived to help. He pulled up in a car as the group exited the apartment and Matariyeh immediately pointed a gun at him before pounding on the windshield with the gun. Everyone fled as Matariyeh ran back inside the apartment.
The two men met in a parking lot before attempting to return to the apartment. That’s when they looked up and saw Matariyeh on the balcony. Matariyeh immediately began firing multiple shots at them as they took cover behind parked cars.
It was around this time that Minneapolis police officers arrived and made contact with Matariyeh’s ex-girlfriend. She believed he was still inside the apartment, but officers later learned that he had fled. They reached him on the phone. He told officers he was going to kill innocent people if he couldn’t speak with his ex-girlfriend or see his daughter, who was at daycare at the time. He later told police negotiators that “he wanted to go out by ‘suicide by cop.’”
All the while, Matariyeh was speeding westbound.
Police officers pursued him near Cosmos in Meeker County after being alerted that Matariyeh might have stolen another vehicle at gunpoint in Carver County.
Around 2 p.m. he pulled into the rural driveway of Peter Mayerchak in Lake Lillian. Mayerchak, who was in his yard placing hay over his septic mound, went and greeted Matariyeh, who shot him in the chest.
Mixing progressive dreams with dire warnings, a group of DFL leaders riled up a group of volunteers in St. Paul on Thursday morning, urging them to push on through the day’s freezing rain and fatigue in the remaining days before the election.
Several elected officials including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar told the group of about 150 campaign staffers, volunteers and union members about how meaningful their work is to keeping DFL control of the Legislature, as the electeds start a statewide bus tour to turn out votes.
“We are here to keep our trifecta here in Minnesota,” U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar told volunteers on Thursday. “We’ve got five days, people!”
On the Republican side, House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said earlier this month that the House Republican Campaign Committee had raised a record $2.7 million ahead of the election and she said Republicans have also set records in volunteering and door-knocking as they work to break DFL control.
Minnesota Democrats hold a rally before starting a bus tour around the state to get voters excited, including Rep Ilhan Omar, Sen Amy Klobuchar, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, Rep Betty McCollum and Sen Tina Smith on Thursday. (Glen Stubbe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“Republicans have the momentum and resources heading into the final stretch to win the majority and restore balance to Minnesota,” Demuth said in a statement. “Minnesotans are ready to move on from the expensive two years of Democrat one-party rule.”
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said she thought voters preferred action to the gridlock of divided government. “They’re looking for people who can get things done,” she said.
These last-minute get-out-the-vote efforts come as Democrats around the country push to keep control of state legislative chambers and try to flip a few statehouses that Republicans hold by just a few seats.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the arm of the national Democratic party that works on statehouse races across the country, has spent $500,000 on Minnesota races this year, including House races and the state Senate contest.
United Airlines passenger attacked while sleeping on flight from San Francisco: “His face was bruised and bloody”
Trump’s net worth slumps by as much as $2.4 billion amid DJT stock plunge
U.S. imposes sanctions on top members of armed wing of Mexican cartel linked to 2019 killings of 9 Americans
United Airlines passenger attacked while sleeping on flight from San Francisco: “His face was bruised and bloody”
Trump’s net worth slumps by as much as $2.4 billion amid DJT stock plunge