They literally just started investigating them.
March 13, 2019 — Two months after Walz replaces fellow DFLer Mark Dayton as governor, Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles
releases a report on fraud in Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Nobles’ review follows
allegations reported by FOX 9 TV in 2018 that as much as $100 million in child care funds was being funneled overseas to a Somali terror group. While Nobles tells lawmakers that fraud in the program is a known problem, "we couldn't find evidence to substantiate that there is $100 million in fraud in CCAP every year." Nobles says he found no evidence that taxpayer funds were being sent to terrorists.
March 18, 2019 — The inspector general of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), Carolyn Ham, is put on investigative
leave following the auditor’s report.
"We take this incredibly seriously," Walz says. "We are doing our own internal investigations, and our goal is to bring accountability to the system and move forward. And at this time, that's about all I can say." DHS later
reassigns Ham to another division.
April 2020 — During the COVID-19 pandemic, Twin Cities nonprofits Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care (also known as Partners in Nutrition) dramatically increase sponsorship of meal distribution sites after the U.S. Department of Agriculture waives some of its rules for federal child nutrition programs. Among other things, the USDA allows for-profit restaurants to participate as meal sites when child care centers and after-school programs are shut down.
Aimee Bock, Feeding Our Future’s executive director, grows her organization quickly by conspiring with dozens of people, including restaurant owners and their friends and relatives, to submit fraudulent reimbursement requests for millions of meals that they never served under the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service Program.
Taxpayer funds from the USDA paid to Feeding Our Future via the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which oversees the food programs on the state level, jump from $3.5 million in 2019 to nearly $43 million in 2020 before peaking at $198 million in 2021.
Nov. 20, 2020 — Feeding Our Future sues MDE for racial discrimination, alleging that the department “wrongfully withheld federal funding” and failed to approve dozens of meal sites operated by members of Minnesota’s Somali American community in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
Dec. 17, 2020 — MDE agrees to process Feeding Our Future’s food site applications “in a reasonably prompt manner” in response to the nonprofit’s request for a temporary restraining order.
April 2021 — MDE staff inform the FBI that “Feeding Our Future and sites under its sponsorship were diverting funds away” from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs.
April 29, 2021 — MDE denies Feeding Our Future’s request to sponsor 143 meal site applications because of “serious deficiencies as a sponsoring agency.”
May 2021 — The FBI begins investigating Feeding Our Future.
June 24, 2021 — Ramsey County Judge John Guthmann finds MDE
in contempt for moving too slowly on Feeding Our Future's meal site applications and orders MDE to pay the nonprofit $47,500 in penalties and attorneys’ fees.
A group of meal site operators celebrate Bock's short-lived legal victory with a party at Benadir Hall, a Minneapolis event venue later found to have been built with stolen taxpayer funds. Prosecutors would play
video of the celebration at Bock’s 2025 trial.
Jan. 20, 2022 — The FBI investigation
becomes public when agents raid Feeding Our Future's offices, Aimee Bock’s home and two dozen other homes and businesses.
Feb. 2022 — Feeding Our Future
dissolves. In a statement, Bock blames “negative media reports and frozen assets."
Sept. 20, 2022 — U.S. Attorney Andy Luger
announces charges against the first four dozen Feeding Our Future defendants, including Aimee Bock. Federal prosecutors call it “the single largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country.”
Sept. 22, 2022 — Amid criticism from legislative Republicans and Scott Jensen, his GOP opponent in the gubernatorial race,
Walz defends MDE’s response to the Feeding Our Future allegations. “We caught this fraud. We caught it very early. We alerted the right people. We were taken to court. We were sued.”
Oct. 13, 2022 — The first three Feeding Our Future defendants
plead guilty.
Oct. 18, 2022 — During a
gubernatorial debate, Jensen blames Walz for the Feeding Our Future fraud. “Gov. Walz and his team could’ve stopped this anywhere along the line,” Jensen says. “Two questions are big on all of our minds: What did Gov. Walz know, and when did he know it?”
Nov. 8, 2022 — Walz
wins reelection to a second term, beating Jensen 52 to 45 percent.
Jan. 6, 2023 — In a meeting with the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Walz
proposes more oversight of state grants, including more internal controls and inspectors at key agencies.
March 13, 2023 — Federal prosecutors
announce charges against 10 more defendants as the Feeding Our Future investigation expands. Ultimately, 78 people would be charged by late 2025.
June 2023 — State lawmakers
approve nearly $1 billion for Minnesota nonprofits. The spending package includes additional oversight for grants.
June 7, 2024 — After five weeks of trial testimony, a federal jury
convicts five people connected to a small Shakopee restaurant of stealing $47 million in taxpayer money by falsely claiming to have served 18 million meals to children. Jurors acquit two of the defendants.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel halts the trial during closing arguments after several of the defendants, including one who was later acquitted, try to
bribe a juror by dropping a Hallmark gift bag containing $120,000 in cash at her home.
June 13, 2024 — In a
strongly worded report, Minnesota Legislative Auditor Judy Randall finds that “actions and inactions” by MDE opened the door for fraud in the child nutrition programs. “We can always do better,” Walz says in
response to the report, but he denies any “malfeasance” on the part of state officials.
“There’s not a single state employee that was implicated in doing anything that was illegal,” Walz says. “They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should have.”
Aug. 6, 2024 — After President Joe Biden announces that he will not seek a second term, Vice President Kamala Harris chooses Walz as her running mate.
Sep. 4, 2024 — Congressional Republicans
attack Walz over Feeding Our Future. House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
subpoenas the governor for documents related to the scheme.
Dec. 12, 2024 — The nutrition program fraud investigation expands into Medicaid fraud as
FBI raids autism treatment centers in Minneapolis and St. Cloud.
Feds allege that the operator of Smart Therapy in Minneapolis stole $14 million by recruiting parents in the Somali American community and “diagnosing” their children with autism regardless of the symptoms in a scheme to rip off Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program. The operator of Star Autism Center in St. Cloud is alleged to have stolen $6 million in a similar manner.
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