The former owner of a small Minneapolis restaurant said Tuesday that Feeding Our Future cut off millions of dollars in fraudulent food payments after she refused to pay a $1.5 million kickback to Aimee Bock, the nonprofit’s founder. 

Hanna Marekegn is one of 70 people implicated in what federal prosecutors say was a $250 million scheme, led by Bock, to defraud taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs during the pandemic. 

Marekegn, 42, was among the first defendants to plead guilty. She faces around four years in prison per the terms of her plea agreement after admitting in 2022 that she siphoned $7.1 million from the programs. Marekegn was the fifth cooperating defendant to testify in the trial of Bock and Salim Said, who was co-owner of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis. 

Marekegn told jurors that prior to COVID, she opened a small cafe in an office building on East Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. Marekegn said that her business, Brava Cafe, struggled during the pandemic, but after enrolling in the child nutrition programs under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future she soon began receiving five and six-figure checks each month.

Marekegn agreed to submit fraudulent claims from Brava Cafe for around 4,000 meals per day, an amount that far exceeded the capacity of her restaurant, which served fewer than 10 customers daily.

Responding to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, Marekegn testified that she agreed to pay 5 percent of the funds that she received to Feeding Our Future employee Abdikerm Eidleh, who enrolled her in the food program. 

“What would happen if you didn’t pay him 5 percent?” the prosecutor asked.

“I would lose the contract,” Marekegn replied. 

In her plea agreement Marekegn admitted paying Eidleh more than $150,000 in kickbacks. At trial, she explained that Eidleh directed her to write checks to shell companies that he controlled with names such as “Eidleh Inc.” and “Hope Suppliers.” She said that Eidleh would write “supplies” in the memo lines in an effort to disguise the purpose of the payments.

Eidleh, who’s also charged in the case, fled to his native Somalia in late 2021, shortly before the FBI raided Feeding Our Future’s headquarters, Bock’s home, and two dozen other locations related to the investigation. 

Marekegn also described how Feeding Our Future shifted course when the Minnesota Department of Education, which distributes the federal food program funds on the state level, rescinded a temporary rule that had allowed for-profit restaurants, including Brava Cafe, to operate meal distribution sites during COVID.

Marekegn said because she could no longer operate her own meal site, Bock directed her to serve as a vendor to others, including House of Refuge Outreach Twin Cities. That site’s operator, Sharon Ross, received a 3 1/2 year sentence Feb. 7 after pleading guilty to fraud.

The switch to nonprofit-operated meal sites came amid a lawsuit that Bock had filed against MDE in late 2020 after the department delayed approval for some meal sites.

At a spring 2021 meeting of operators of food sites that Feeding Our Future had sponsored, Marekegn said that Bock urged the operators to call state legislators, city council members, and MDE to pressure the department into resuming the cash flow. Bock, Marekegn testified, told the largely East African group that MDE was racist for stopping the program.

“She said that they don’t want to give us the program,” Marekegn recounted. “They just don’t want us to do the work. It’s not meant for our community.”

She added that Feeding Our Future leaders assured program participants that COVID fraud was not really fraud.

“We knew everything was wrong but we just kept doing it because we needed the money,” Marekegn said.

Bock won a temporary legal victory in April 2021 when Ramsey County Judge John Guthmann ruled that MDE did not have the authority to stop payments to Feeding Our Future, and he also threatened to hold the department in contempt of court if it failed to act on delayed meal site applications.

“It was all fraud and she won,” Marekegn said. “The whole community looked at her. Aimee Bock was a god. The whole East African community called her ‘sweet Aimee’ because she gave us the American dream life.”

Marekegn testified that their relationship soured after she submitted a fraudulent $3.1 million invoice to Feeding Our Future for 3,000 meals delivered to House of Refuge in July of 2021. Bock wanted a 50 percent cut in cash.

Marekegn recalled telling Bock at a tense meeting that it would be impossible to come up with $1.5 million.

“What happened after you refused?” asked Thompson.

“I got terminated from the contract. Bock terminated it,” Marekegn replied.

Under cross examination from Bock’s defense attorney Kenneth Udoibok, Marekegn said she continued submitting fraudulent claims under a different sponsor, which has been identified in court documents as Partners In Nutrition. So far federal prosecutors have not charged anyone from Partners in Nutrition.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.