New allegations of witness tampering in a Feeding Our Future trial have rocked a federal courtroom in downtown Minneapolis. Now, new security measures are going into place while there's an investigation into what happened.
Prosecutors on Tuesday alleged intimidation and the possibility of an inappropriate conversation between an alleged co-conspirator and a witness who is set to testify for the prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel said at the end of court Tuesday that she does not know what is going on, but "she's going to find out."
Deena Winter with the Minnesota Star Tribune has been covering the proceedings and talked with our Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News and said the judge in the case will take a hard look at actions by defendants Salim Said and Aimee Bock.
"This incident with this witness, the judge is going to try to find out if one of the two defendants on trial this week, Aimee Bock, and then this guy Said, the judge is gonna try to find out if Said was involved in any way," explains Winter. "I mean, because that's problematic."
These new allegations follow last year's first trial involving the sprawling scandal, where a woman tried to bribe a juror with over $100,000. Of the 70 people charged since 2022 in the massive case, 30 have pleaded guilty. Last year, there were five people tied to a Shakopee restaurant who were convicted. Two were acquitted in that case.
The allegations against Bock are the most severe yet. She's accused of being the ringleader of the $250 million COVID fraud case, one of the largest in Minnesota history.
The allegations came Tuesday after prosecutors alleged intimidation and the possibility of an inappropriate conversation between an alleged coconspirator and a witness who is set to testify for the prosecution.
"They may be looking at cell phones again as they did in the bribery case, and they're doing it and now, they're doing an investigation into this," Winter says of the process. "That will be a whole separate thing from the case underway. So, the trial continues and Aimee Bock, of course, is really the center of this whole case."
So far, Bock has denied all of the allegations against her. Said is co-owner of Safari Restaurant who federal investigators say was one of the largest beneficiaries of the fraud scheme. But prosecutors with the federal government say Bock played a key role in the case because she was responsible for ensuring the organization was actually responsible for serving the amount of meals they claimed they were. She even went so far as to assure the State of Minnesota that the meal counts were accurate when she was questioned.
Bock told the Star Tribune in 2022 that they visited food sites and saw the food being served, saying it's possible she was just "outsmarted" but she didn't think that was the case. Others who have testified for the government claim there was little to no oversight over invoices, and food sites were never visited.
Feeding Our Future claimed to feed thousands of children every day at sites controlled by them and partners, but are alleged to have just pocketed the money received from COVID relief funds in a "get-rich" scheme.