Faribault restaurant owner testifies Feeding Our Future founder knew about $30K in monthly kickbacks

A Faribault restaurant owner told a jury Tuesday she paid $30,000 in kickbacks monthly to a Feeding Our Future employee who would immediately verify each of the payments in a video call with Aimee Bock, the nonprofit’s chief executive.

Lul Bashir Ali, who with her husband pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of $5 million, wept as she took the witness stand to testify in Bock’s federal trial. Ali described the damage the massive $250 million fraud scandal — one of the largest pandemic-related fraud schemes in the country — has caused the local Somali community.

“She destroy[ed] us as a community,” said Ali, a native of Somalia who struggled to express herself in English. “I don’t like to remember that.”

Ali’s testimony came during the second day of Bock’s trial, which also featured the surprising testimony of a bartender who was identified by Bock in court documents as the president of Feeding Our Future’s board but told jurors he never actually served in the role.

“I had no idea I was any part of that,” said Benjamin Stayberg, who said he never did anything for Feeding Our Future and knew Bock only because she visited his St. Paul bar about once a month.

Bock has been charged with multiple felonies for allegedly organizing the large pay-for-play scheme featuring dozens of co-conspirators who got rich by pretending to feed millions of meals to low-income children in 2020 and 2021.

Bock has denied the allegations, saying she got no improper payments and was unaware of any fraud.

Ali testified under questioning from prosecutors that her part of the scam started in early 2020, three months after she opened Lido Restaurant in Faribault. Ali said a Feeding Our Future employee visited her restaurant and encouraged her to sign up for the U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded meals program with the help of Bock’s nonprofit.

Ali said she was skeptical when she was told she could only get $4.50 per meal in government reimbursements since her typical Somali meals cost $12 to prepare. But she said Feeding Our Future employees told her she could overcome that problem by claiming to serve 1,000 meals a day — even if she only handed out a fraction of those meals.

Ali said it was impossible for her nine-table restaurant to handle that kind of volume. She said her restaurant usually served around 50 meals per day. She said that didn’t faze Feeding Our Future, which approved her application the following day and asked her to start serving meals immediately.

“How do I start today?” Ali recalled asking. “I don’t have enough money to shop. I don’t have enough people to cook. He said, ‘Don’t worry about that.' I say, ‘OK.’ ... They know the game. They are planning to steal the money.”

Ali said Bock told her it was all part of the “American Dream,” saying Bock repeatedly pressured her to boost the number of meals she claimed to serve so everybody could make more money. Ali said Bock coached her on how to fill out the forms.

“Everything is a lie,” Ali testified. “They know that — Aimee, she know. They are teaching us to do it.”

Ali admitted, however, that Bock never visited her restaurant and would communicate with her on a cellphone carried by Abdikerm Eidleh, who was in charge of recruiting new food distribution sites for Feeding Our Future. Eidleh, who has been charged with federal programs bribery for allegedly shaking down several site operators, fled the U.S. and remains a fugitive.

Ali said Bock used “young people” like Eidleh to carry out her orders. “We trust them, because they are Somali,” she said.

Ali also testified that the inflated numbers she submitted each month came from Eidleh and Bock. She said the kickbacks were the price of participation.

“If you don’t pay, you don’t enjoy the program,” she testified. “That’s part of the deal.”

Ali said it was challenging to come up with $30,000 in cash each month for the kickbacks without arousing suspicions at her bank, so she would withdraw smaller amounts and then call Eidleh to tell him when she had the full amount. She said Eidleh confirmed each payoff with Bock on a video call while still at her restaurant.

“I have the money — that’s what he would say,” Ali testified. “Sometimes she’d talk to me and she would say ... open another facility.”

Ali said her husband, Mohamed Ali Hussein, eventually signed up a nonprofit he started in 2009 called Somali American Faribault Education (SAFE), which wound up fraudulently collecting more than $2 million in government reimbursements. She said she and her husband used the money to buy two houses and a car.

When asked how she feels about her crimes, Ali said, “Very bad. ... I am sorry. What I did was not good.”

Bock’s lawyer, Kenneth Udoibok, asked if Ali was incriminating Bock in criminal behavior because Ali was mad at Bock for terminating her husband’s contract when his organization lost its nonprofit status. Ali said that didn’t happen until December 2021, a month before the federal investigation went public with searches of Bock’s home and office.

She testified she didn’t receive funding in November 2021 because of the state investigation, not because of Bock.

Udoibok later told reporters Bock never shared in the $30,000-a-month payments that were allegedly solicited by Eidleh on her behalf.

Ali, Udoibok told reporters, “has always been a liar.”

Udoibok also tried to limit any potential damage caused by Stayberg, who testified on cross-examination that he doesn’t know who forged his signature on various corporate records furnished to state regulators by Feeding Our Future.

“I know it wasn’t me,” Stayberg said.

The forms indicated Stayberg had “extensive knowledge of food sourcing and food costs,” but Stayberg said that isn’t true. He said he never attended any board meetings, even though his name shows up in the minutes as the president. At some meetings, the minutes indicated he was involved in major decisions, such as strategizing on recruitment of meal sites.

Stayberg testified he didn’t have a “clue” how the meals program worked and didn’t know he was listed as Feeding Our Future’s president until a reporter called him in 2022. He said the only piece of paper he remembered signing for Bock was a petition. He said he would never have volunteered to help oversee a nonprofit, and he expressed doubt that another Feeding Our Future board member — whom he described as a friend — ever knowingly volunteered because they both like to “party” too much.

“The last place either of us would be is in a room like this, trying to explain ourselves,” Stayberg said. “It’s just ridiculous.”

Also on trial is Salim Said, who controlled three organizations, including Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, which collectively received more than $30 million. The trial could last a month.