Feeding Our Future: the Lake Street cluster

As the prosecution wraps up its case in the latest Feeding Our Future trial, some interesting details have emerged.

Aimee Bock, Feeding Our Future CEO, and Salim Said, co-owner of Safari Restaurant, are currently on trial and are Defendant Nos. 1 and 3 in the sprawling free-food scandal.

Among others, Scott Johnson of PowerLine reports from inside the Federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis about the beehive of activity a few blocks south, on Lake Street:

Feeding Our Future came to sponsor an astounding 21 “sites” on the 1.8 mile stretch of Lake Street singled out by [prosecution witness] Ms. Roase. Even more astounding, the “sites” allegedly came to serve 59,000 meals a day to 30,000 beneficiaries. The total enrollment of the Minneapolis School District is 33,000 students. Total meals served on this stretch allegedly reached 12.8 million by November 2021.

KSTP-TV notes that these Lake Street sites received more than $34 million in free-food money.

And as I’ve documented over the years, it was not just Feeding Our Future claiming distribution sites on Lake Street. Moving from west to east along that storied boulevard:

309 E. Lake Street was the headquarters of the S&S Catering group of defendants (Nos. 23-30).

1229 E. Lake Street was the headquarters of the group of defendants related to former Feeding employee Ikram Mohamed (Nos. 63-69).

1516 E. Lake Street was the headquarters of the Lake Street Kitchen group of defendants (Nos. 36-38) housed at the JigJiga business center:

I could go on with additional addresses on Lake Street.

Another point that I’ve made, time and again, is that all the addresses shown above house other state-funded businesses owned by these same defendants: daycare, PCA, you name it.

In other Feeding Our Future news, Defendant No. 27, Guhaad Hashi Said, requested court permission to travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for a month from mid-March to mid-April. He is not scheduled for trial until October.

The judge denied his travel request noting that he is under additional restrictions arising from a years-ago assault conviction back in Ohio.

The defense in the current Bock/Said trial is expected to present their case beginning next week.