Good morning, and happy Wednesday, the last day of summer.
Federal authorities on Tuesday charged 48 people in what they described as the country's largest COVID-19 funding scam, alleging an elaborate Minnesota-based operation stole at least $250 million in federal funds meant to feed needy children but that went instead to buy cars, luxury goods, jewelry and property in the United States, Kenya and Turkey. MPR News reported the alleged scheme was centered around Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit that prosecutors say was a conduit for illegal payments and whose leaders received kickbacks. Charges include conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. "These individuals believed they could steal tens of millions of dollars from federal nutrition programs," U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger told reporters. "Their goal was to make as much money for themselves as they could while falsely claiming to feed children in the pandemic." He called it a "brazen scheme of staggering proportions" that faked some 125 million meals.
Federal prosecutors allege Feeding Our Future executive director Aimee Bock was at the center of the scam. Bock Tuesday pleaded not guilty to the charges against her and was not ordered detained. In a statement, Bock's attorney Kenneth Udoibok said: "An indictment does not signify guilty or innocence. It's the beginning of the criminal process. I'm surprised that Ms. Bock has been indicted because she did nothing worthy of a criminal indictment."
Sahan Journal reported that some of the people charged in the alleged scam have notable political and business connections, including Abdi Salah, former senior policy aide to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and Sharmarke Issa, former board chair of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.
And Sahan Journal has a good timeline of how the events involving Feeding our Future played out. In March of 2020 the pandemic hit and schools moved to online learning. The federal government relaxed requirements for states accessing federal Child Nutrition Programs money, which is earmarked to feed underprivileged children. The Minnesota Department of Education distributes the federal money to sponsor organizations, including Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care, who disseminate it further to smaller vendors who work with them to feed children. Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care, which were using the federal funds before COVID, began greatly increasing the number of vendors working with them. And April of 2021 when a state judge ruled that the Department of Education acted too quickly in halting funding to Feeding Our Future, and ordered the department to resume federal food-aid payments to the organization. The education department, still suspecting fraud, contacted the FBI.
Republicans blamed the Walz administration for the fraud. "Tim Walz owes every citizen of our state the courtesy of asking for his education commissioner to resign," Republican candidate for governor Scott Jensen said in a statement. Walz didn't respond, but a statement from the Minnesota Department of Education said the federal charges were a "direct result of the persistence and diligent oversight of the Minnesota Department of Education."
DFL Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a statement saying his office will continue to investigate whether Feeding Our Future broke any state nonprofit or charity laws. Ellison's campaign also issued this statement: "As the list of those indicted in the federal fraud investigation into Feeding Our Future became public, we became aware of a donation to our campaign from one of the individuals charged. We immediately refunded the donation in full."
Ellison's Republican opponent Jim Schultz said Tuesday that he has the endorsement of 22 county sheriffs, including four from the Twin Cities metro area. Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie and Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said they haven't historically made statewide candidate endorsements, but they felt so strongly about opposing Ellison that they had to break that tradition.
Most Minnesotans believe that crime in their community increased in recent years, according to the latest MPR News/Star Tribune/KARE 11 poll. MPR's Dana Ferguson reports that in all, 54 percent said they thought crime had increased, while 45 percent said it stayed flat. Another 1 percent said it declined. But despite that perceived increase in crime, 83 percent said they did not fear being attacked or threatened in their own neighborhood. That's compared to about 17 percent who said they were worried about threats or attacks close to home.
Some state lawmakers are saying again that Minnesota's Department of Human Services should be broken up. The latest call came Tuesday at a state Senate committee meeting to talk about a recent Legislative Auditor's report that found a lack of oversight of grants for services to people without homes, among others. The Star Tribune reports: The auditor's review found no evidence of misspent funds or fraud, but also could provide no assurance that fraud didn't occur. "I don't really have any trust in an agency that can't tell me if fraud occurred," said Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, at the hearing. "That doesn't work. That doesn't fly. I do think we need to take a serious look at overhauling the agency." Other legislators were more pointed in their criticism, repeating past calls for the agency to be split up into smaller parts to improve accountability. In a display of frustration, Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who heads the committee that held Tuesday's hearing, waved a stack of old audit reports critical of DHS — to underscore his view that the agency has become too large to manage effectively. "The trust of the public is what's at stake here," Abeler said. "And I have to say it's not a new discussion." | 
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