Feeding Our Future mastermind Aimee Bock was sentenced to just over 41 years in prison Thursday.
“This was a vortex of fraud and you were its epicenter,” Judge Nancy Brasel said at a sentencing hearing in federal court in Minneapolis.
Bock, wearing a bright green jumpsuit, was given a chance to address the packed courtroom before her sentence was handed down.
“I just want to tell everyone how sorry I am that this happened. I understand the situation I’m in. I understand the jury’s verdict. I understand that I failed,” she said. “It was not something I ever set out to do.”
Bock was convicted by a jury in March 2025 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, and bribery after prosecutors spelled out how she led a scheme to defraud a federal child nutrition program of more than $240 million that was intended to help feed children during the pandemic.
The Feeding Our Future scandal gets its name from the nonprofit Bock led, which acted as a sponsor organization for food distribution sites across the state. Many of the individuals who ran those sites have been charged or convicted as well.
“Disabling Aimee Bock from ever meaningfully participating in society again is the only just outcome. The state of Minnesota will never be the same because of Aimee Bock,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kline said Thursday.
The scheme involved 91 million meals at 300 sites, “the overwhelming majority of which were never served,” she added.
Kline said the “vast, unprecedented scope of this defendant’s fraudulent conduct,” coupled with her “absolute refusal to take an inkling of responsibility,” warrants “true accountability.”
“Feeding Our Future was feeding virtually no kids at all. Instead, it was feeding bank accounts of fraudsters exploiting a national emergency,” she continued, saying “not $1 of this fraud would have been possible” without Bock.
“It’s difficult to imagine a more cynical abuse of public trust,” Kline said.
Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, described Bock as “a good person” who “meant well.”
“She gave access to people that she shouldn’t have,” he commented, saying Bock’s “personal gain” from the scheme was “not significant.”
But Brasel concluded that “a sentence of less than 500 months would not do justice to the people of Minnesota, who in a very real sense were the victims of this fraud.”
Judge Brasel also found that Bock committed perjury when she testified during her trial and ordered her to pay $242 million in restitution. More than 60 people have been convicted thus far for their role in the Feeding Our Future scheme.
Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and House GOP Leader Harry Niska released a joint statement hailing Bock’s sentencing while pointing out that “fraud on this scale should never have happened.”
“Local reporting this week revealed that when front-line regulators raised red flags about Feeding Our Future, managers at the Department of Education discouraged aggressive oversight because of political pressure from legislators and fears of being accused of racism,” they said in a joint statement.
“This stunning failure of leadership is exactly the culture of fraud that Minnesota must confront and correct if we are ever going to end this epidemic.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
