Feeding Our Future $250 million fraud scheme: Ringleader found guilty

The verdict

A federal jury in Minneapolis found Aimee Bock, the founder and former executive director of Feeding Our Future, guilty in the roughly $250 million scheme to loot federal child-nutrition funds — the largest known fraud of federal pandemic-relief money in U.S. history.

Bock had taken the stand in her own defense and denied wrongdoing, arguing she had been lied to by the vendors and meal sites operating under her nonprofit. Prosecutors countered with what one observer described as an “onslaught” of evidence: fabricated meal counts, invented rosters of children, and falsified documents across dozens of sites. At one point a single site claimed roughly 6,000 meals a day — a number FBI investigators testified was, by common sense, not possible.

By the time the verdict was read, dozens of co-defendants had already pleaded guilty. The judge thanked the jury for navigating an “enormous volume of evidence” in an extraordinarily complex case.

This conviction made Bock the centerpiece of a prosecution that has now charged more than 79 people. She was later sentenced to 500 months — about 41.7 years — and ordered to repay nearly $243 million.

See the full case timeline, key players, and every report on the Feeding Our Future investigation hub.