Woman jailed for nearly 42 years over US$250 million Minnesota fraud case
Aimee Bock sentenced for orchestrating the largest known theft of federal Covid-19 relief funds
The leader of a Minnesota non-profit group was sentenced to 41 years in prison on Thursday after she was convicted last year of being the ringleader of a US$250 million scheme to defraud a federally funded child nutrition programme.
Aimee Bock, 45, was charged in 2022 with using her non-profit group Feeding Our Future to enact what the Justice Department said was the largest known fraud against the US government’s relief programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than 70 other people have been charged alongside Bock. The fraud has been often invoked by US President Donald Trump, a Republican, as part of his rationale for targeting Minnesota, led by Democrats, for an aggressive surge in arresting and deporting immigrants earlier this year.
On the same day as Bock’s sentencing, the US Department of Justice announced new charges against 15 people accused of defrauding Medicaid and other welfare programmes in Minnesota of US$90 million.
Bock cried as she addressed US District Judge Nancy Brasel at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported: “I don’t have the words to express just how horrible I feel. I know I’m responsible”.
Federal prosecutors had sought 50 years in prison. In sentencing Bock to 500 months, or 41 years and eight months, Brasel said a lengthy sentence was necessary because of Bock’s central role.