Minneapolis — The former leader of a Minnesota nonprofit, who was convicted for her role in a stunning $250 million fraud case that helped spark a federal immigration crackdown, should spend 50 years in prison, prosecutors said in a lawsuit.
Amy Bock, who ran the organization Feeding our futurewho claimed to have helped provide millions of meals to children in need during the pandemic, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in federal court in Minneapolis.
“The Feed Our Future program operates like a cash pipeline, open to anyone willing to submit fraudulent claims and pay kickbacks,” prosecutors said in a filing Monday. “The implications of her actions are profound and immeasurable, and will have lasting consequences for both Minnesotans and the nation.”
Bock was convicted last year on multiple charges involving conspiracy, fraud and bribery. She has long insisted she is innocent.
Her lawyer, Kenneth Oduiboke, said in a separate filing that she should spend no more than 37 months in prison, saying she had provided information to investigators. He said Bock had been unfairly portrayed as the mastermind and insisted two co-accused were responsible for running the fraud.
Prosecutors say the nonprofit is at the top of a fraud network that includes a network of partner organizations, phony distribution sites, kickbacks and fake lists of children supposedly being fed. Dozens of people, many from the state’s large Somali community, were convicted for their roles in a series of overlapping food fraud cases that spent years in the courts.
Last year, President Donald Trump, who has long mocked Somalis, criticized the state as a “hub for fraudulent money laundering activities.” He criticized the leadership Governor Tim Walz, Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2024, W He referred to fraud As justification for launching Immigration campaign That shook the city.
“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great country, and billions of dollars are missing. Send them back where they came from,” Trump wrote on social media.
Bok is white, and the US Attorney’s Office says the vast majority of defendants in these cases are of Somali origin. Most of them are American citizens.