Aimee Bock, the founder of the fraudulent Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future, told the New York Post that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “knew” about the $250 million fraud scheme that was engineered by the nonprofit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bock, 45, was convicted in March 2025 on federal charges of conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud related to the state’s largest COVID-era fraud scheme. She has maintained that she did not knowingly participate in fraud and that she attempted to alert state officials to irregularities.
Bock spoke with The Post in a jailhouse interview while awaiting sentencing. “I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” the convicted fraudster said while speaking of Rep. Omar.
She went on to describe multiple instances of contact between Feeding Our Future and Omar’s office. According to Bock, the congresswoman’s staff fielded requests for assistance with U.S. Department of Agriculture waivers that allowed the program to operate with reduced oversight.
Court exhibits from Bock’s trial, which resurfaced earlier this month, show Omar’s name appearing at least six times in emails and text messages. One February 5, 2021, email chain carried the subject line “help with USDA food program,” and another exchange between Bock and a Feeding Our Future employee was labeled “Ilhan’s Office.”
A text string between Bock and Omar was also recovered during a raid of Bock’s home. The contents of those communications remain sealed as of this report.
Bock further claimed that Omar personally helped maintain the program’s flexibility, stating that waivers periodically lapsed and that Omar’s involvement addressed “gaps” in coverage.
“There had been a couple times early on that there were some gaps – a waiver would be set to expire on maybe the 15th of a month, and then the renewal didn’t kick in until the 1st,” Bock said. She noted that Omar sponsored the MEALS Act in March 2020, which authorized the USDA to issue pandemic-related waivers for school-meal programs.
Those waivers eliminated routine site inspections and expanded eligibility to restaurants and other non-traditional providers, measures Bock said enabled inflated or fictitious meal claim
Omar also filmed a promotional video at the Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis in May 2020, one of the largest participants in the program. In the video, she stated that Safari provided 2,300 meals daily to children and families.
The restaurant’s co-owner, Salim Said, was later convicted of defrauding the government of $16 million — the largest single amount in the case — and is awaiting sentencing. Omar also held her 2018 election night party at the same location.
Bock observed that many meal sites were operated by members of Minnesota’s Somali community, which forms the majority of the population in Omar’s Fifth Congressional District, and that operators reached out directly to Omar’s office. “A lot of the sites were working directly with her, being that a lot of the operators were from the same Somali community,” Bock told the New York Post.
Aimee Bock (the woman below) said the government used her as a scapegoat and believes it was aware of the rampant fraud. She is awaiting sentencing.
“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar.
When you sleep with dogs, don't be surprised when you… pic.twitter.com/CI5og2R8Kb
— Jon Jerret (@Spookey2th) May 16, 2026
Feeding Our Future was a small Minnesota nonprofit that partnered with the USDA to distribute federal child nutrition funds. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization reviewed reimbursement claims from local restaurants and community groups that purported to serve meals to low-income children.
Prosecutors have established that dozens of participants, primarily in Minnesota’s Somali community, submitted claims for meals that were never provided or were grossly inflated. Federal funds were diverted to personal luxuries rather than meal services
The scheme resulted in approximately $250 million in losses to taxpayers and has led to charges against more than 80 individuals. Bock was the only non-Somali speaker among those charged, a point she highlighted in the interview.
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