Vol XI
Volume XI covers the full trial day of February 26, 2025 before Judge Brasel in Minneapolis, with five witnesses for the government and no defense witnesses. The day opened with Cerresso Fort, a St. Paul boxing gym owner, who testified that his business SIR Boxing Club was enrolled by Feeding Our Future as a food site without his knowledge or consent, with 2,500 daily meals falsely claimed under his address and Aimee Bock's handwritten name on the submission documents. Jamie Phelps, a 49-year-old mechanic, testified he agreed in passing at a neighborhood bonfire to serve on a FOF board but never showed up, reviewed a budget, or signed any document — yet his forged signature appeared on state charity registration forms, tax filings, and fabricated board meeting minutes sent by Aimee Bock. Farhiyo Moalim, a bookkeeper at TFS (Total Financial Solutions owned by the Salah family), described scanning rosters and invoices brought by food-site operators who then met privately with Salim Said and Abdulkadir Salah (Fish) in the locked 'Safari room' at 2722 Park Avenue. Bank of America custodian Jessica Woodbridge established federal jurisdiction by proving a $2.47 million wire from the Afrikan Village LLC account crossed state lines through Texas servers. IRS Special Agent Joshua Parks closed the day with a devastating statistical analysis: of rosters claiming thousands of children fed at multiple sites, as few as 3 percent of names matched real students in local public schools, and names like 'Putify Nop' and 'Amen Love' appeared simultaneously at multiple sites with wildly shifting ages — conclusive evidence of fabricated rosters. Defense counsel must pay close attention to the Parks cross where Udoibok extracted that Parks only joined the investigation in February 2024, post-indictment, and cannot say whether Bock personally opened any of the emails sent to the shared claims inbox.
The government used this day to build the human face of the fraud — calling a real community figure (Cerresso Fort, boxer and gym owner) whose business name and address were misused without his knowledge, and a phantom board member (Jamie Phelps, a mechanic) whose forged signature appeared on Feeding Our Future's founding and compliance documents. Against that backdrop, TFS employee Farhiyo Moalim placed Salim Said and his associates at the center of a meat-processing hub for fraudulent rosters and kickback payments, while Bank of America witness Jessica Woodbridge established federal wire fraud jurisdiction. IRS Special Agent Joshua Parks then delivered the analytical coup de grace — comparing the roster names against 193,249 real Minnesota school children and finding match rates as low as 3 percent, identifying fictitious names (Putify Nop, Amen/Praise/Blessings Love, Cerresso Fort) copied across sites, and documenting ages that randomly changed across submissions. The government's overarching narrative was that every layer of the fraud — site names, children's names, ages, board members, signatures, invoices — was fabricated, and that both defendants were knowledgeable recipients or active participants in the scheme.
- The regulatory waiver argument (USDA Q19/D1-224) is potentially significant and was preserved by Udoibok at the end of the day. If the USDA issued guidance that attendance records were waived during COVID, and if rosters were voluntary under USDA rules, then a key pillar of the fraud theory collapses. Defense counsel must immediately investigate this document and find a USDA or MDE regulatory expert who can testify that roster submission was optional — or at least that the regulatory landscape was sufficiently ambiguous to negate willful knowledge of a legal duty. - Parks's statistical analysis is the most dangerous exhibit in the case for any FOF-connected defendant. Defense counsel must retain a forensic data expert to challenge the methodology before the evidence becomes settled in the jury's mind. Key attack points: (1) name-matching algorithm does not account for Somali/East African transliteration variants; (2) the 20-district comparison set does not include charter schools, Islamic private schools, or other education settings common in the target communities; (3) Parks was a post-indictment hire working backward from a pre-formed theory. - Exhibit A75 (Bock's email to MDE clarifying the SIR Boxing/Arcade distinction) is potentially the single most important exhibit for Bock's defense and was never properly introduced. Defense counsel should build an entire line of examination around it — possibly through the MDE official who received it, proving Bock proactively corrected site naming issues and distinguished between SIR Boxing and another nonprofit operating in the building. - The shared claims@feedingourfuturemn.org email inbox is a critical gap in the government's evidence against Bock. Parks admitted he cannot prove Bock opened or reviewed any specific fraudulent roster. Defense counsel must press this in every future examination of government agents and analysts — the government's theory requires Bock to have known about the fake rosters, but the shared inbox means any of multiple FOF employees could have processed claims submissions. - The Farhiyo Moalim testimony establishes a second hub of fraud (TFS / 2722 Park Ave / the 'Safari room') that is clearly connected to Said and the Salah family but largely disconnected from Bock. Defense counsel should emphasize this structural separation — the kickback payments from food sites to Salim Limited were not routed through FOF, Moalim never saw Bock at TFS or received meal counts from her, and the day-to-day fraud operation appears to have been orchestrated at the TFS building rather than at FOF's offices.
Ebert established that Fort never agreed to participate in any food program, never served or authorized the service of meals at his gym, and was shocked to see SIR Boxing Club enrolled by FOF with Aimee Bock's handwritten name on the submission documents and listed as site monitor. Fort confirmed that his gym (basement of 1440 Arcade Street, Suite E, capacity roughly 25-30 people) could not physically accommodate 2,500 daily meals, and that he was not present on days like the 4th of July or Halloween when the records showed thousands of meals served.
Udoibok's cross attempted to show that (1) the complex was known as 'the Arcade' not just SIR Boxing; (2) Fort admitted food was in fact being distributed to his gym members on Saturdays by someone upstairs; (3) later FOF documents labeled the site 'Arcade' not 'SIR Boxing'; and (4) Fort didn't know who the food operator upstairs was. The cross partially succeeded in creating ambiguity about whether someone else in the building was independently operating a food program, but Fort's emphatic testimony that the numbers were 'outrageous' and that he 'didn't see it' limited the damage.
Bobier established that Phelps had minimal contact with Aimee Bock (roughly 4-5 conversations at neighborhood bonfires and a local pub), agreed once in passing to serve on a board without understanding the nature of the organization, and was never again contacted about it. Yet his name and forged signature appeared repeatedly on state charity filings (Exhibit A5), tax forms (Exhibit A77 showing Bock's $120,000+ salary), board meeting minutes (Exhibit A80 showing him 'present' and 'approving budgets' at meetings he never attended), and compliance training quizzes. Phelps testified he was angry to see his name on these documents and only learned of his purported role when he returned from Mexico in 2022 to find media coverage linking him to $250 million in fraud.
Udoibok's cross was very brief — only three questions. He established that Phelps was not accused of receiving money from FOF, not accused of signing any document that gave FOF money, and that Phelps knew Coley Flynn (Bock's associate) better than Bock. The cross made no real dent in the testimony.
Thompson established that Moalim worked at TFS starting fall 2020, processing payroll for Salim Said-connected food sites including Safari Restaurant, ASA Limited, Olive Management, Horseed Management, and Brava Restaurant. Operators of these sites would arrive at TFS at month-end, hand her paper rosters and invoices to scan (which she then emailed to the site's claims address), and then meet privately with Said and Abdulkadir Salah in a locked room she called the 'Safari room' at 2722 Park Avenue. She scanned rosters showing uniformly round, impossibly large meal counts (3,000/day, 6,000/day) and invoices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moalim identified Said in court. On redirect, Thompson showed her records of six-figure checks written from food site accounts to Salim Said's LLC (Salim Limited) — Horseed Management paid $155,000 on Feb. 8, 2021; Olive Management paid $229,000 on Feb. 22, 2021; Brava Restaurant paid $42,000 on Feb. 17, 2021.
Udoibok's brief cross established that Moalim never received a meal count from Bock, never wrote Bock a check, and never visited the FOF building. Colich's cross for Said was more extensive, trying to establish that Moalim only processed payroll under direction, didn't know what the operators discussed in the Safari room, and that approval for paperwork came from her boss Salah, not from Said directly.
Woodbridge briefly confirmed that Bank of America's wire transfer servers were located in Virginia, Texas, and Missouri during 2020-2022, and that a specific $2.47 million wire (Exhibit Z57, Count 57) was initiated at a Bank of America branch in Worthington, Ohio, traveled through the Richardson, Texas, server, and was received by Stewart Title Company at U.S. Bank — establishing interstate wire fraud jurisdiction.
No cross from either defense counsel.
Parks presented the most analytically devastating testimony of the day. He compiled summary exhibits (LL2-LL10) showing that rosters submitted by multiple Feeding Our Future-sponsored sites had child name match rates of roughly 3 percent against real school enrollment records, that the same fictitious names appeared simultaneously across multiple sites with randomly shifting ages (e.g., a child aging from 16 to 14 to 11 to 7 in four months), that fabricated names including 'Putify Nop,' 'Amen Love,' 'Praise Love,' 'Blessings Love,' and 'Cerresso Fort' (the actual adult boxer) appeared in rosters, and that age-generating formulas were embedded in the Excel spreadsheets producing the rosters. He established that both Bock and Said received email rosters directly, and that rosters were found at FOF's office, at the Safari Park Avenue location, and in emails between defendants.
Udoibok's cross focused on three areas: (1) Parks joined the investigation in February 2024, post-indictment, undermining his neutrality; (2) Parks could not say whether Bock personally opened the emails sent to the shared claims@feedingourfuturemn.org inbox; (3) Parks did not know whether rosters were required by regulation, leading to a sidebar and end-of-day ruling that Parks was not the right witness on the regulatory question. The cross was partially effective on the Bock-specific knowledge points.
| Type | Exhibit | Description | Page | Challenge Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document | Gov. Ex. P6 | Feeding Our Future file labeled 'Permanent File' containing MDE site application, meal count forms, civil rights training records, and compliance documents for SIR Boxing Club — with Aimee Bock's handwritten name as site sponsor and site monitor. | [p. 2344-2350] | The defense argued (via sidebar with Exhibit A75) that Bock later emailed MDE clarifying that SIR Boxing was never a FOF site and a different nonprofit operated there — this exculpatory email was not admitted through Fort but should be pursued. |
| Data/Summary | Gov. Ex. LL2 | Agent Parks's summary chart showing enrollment figures for 193,249 students across 20 Minnesota school districts — the baseline used to compare fraudulent roster names. | [p. 2529-2532] | Only 20 districts used; does not account for charter schools, private schools, homeschools, or districts outside the 20 selected. The selection methodology should be challenged. |
| Data/Summary | Gov. Ex. LL3 | Parks's summary chart of 20 email messages containing rosters for 10+ Feeding Our Future-sponsored food sites, showing sender/recipient, number of roster names, and percentage matching real school enrollment records. | [p. 2542-2546] | The name-matching algorithm and its error rate are not disclosed; spelling variation in Somali/East African names could artificially suppress match rates. |
| Data/Summary | Gov. Ex. LL10 | Parks-created summary exhibit tracking three distinctive names — Amen Love, Praise Love, Blessings Love — across multiple food sites (Stigma-Free St. Paul, Southcross Burnsville, Willmar) with different ages at each site in the same month. | [p. 2587-2591] | Defense can argue these names were entered by site operators independently and Feeding Our Future merely transmitted what it received, without verifying. Parks himself acknowledged FOF received these as submissions. |
| Financial Record | Gov. Ex. Z57 | Bank of America wire transfer record for $2,471,112.41 from Afrikan Village LLC (Abdirahman Ahmed, sole signatory) to Stewart Title Company via Richardson, Texas, servers — establishing Count 57. | [p. 2519-2523] | The wire's connection to food program fraud proceeds must be established through separate financial tracing — Woodbridge only proved the wire occurred, not that the funds were fraudulently obtained. |
| Document | Gov. Ex. A5, A29, A76, A77, A80 | Feeding Our Future state charity registration, board member emails, tax filings, and board meeting minutes submitted by Bock listing Jamie Phelps as Treasurer and board member — all containing forged signatures and false representations about his participation. | [p. 2402-2419] | The defense may argue Bock relied on an FOF employee or accountant (e.g., Hussein Hashi, the tax preparer) to complete paperwork, and that she did not personally forge signatures. Bobier countered this is a statement of a party opponent and notice evidence. |
| Document | Gov. Ex. N4, N10, N14, N15, N41 | Emails and scanned documents showing Farhiyo Moalim at TFS scanning food program rosters and invoices (Safari Restaurant, ASA Limited, Olive Management) with impossibly uniform large meal counts. | [p. 2438-2454] | These show Moalim scanned documents on instruction — they do not independently prove Said directed the fraudulent content, only that he co-owned the building where processing occurred. |
Udoibok's performance was mixed. His cross of Fort was creative in extracting that food was actually distributed at the Arcade complex, that later documents called the site 'Arcade' not 'SIR Boxing,' and that Fort had limited personal knowledge of what happened upstairs — but he failed to land Exhibit A75 (the Bock MDE email) which was his most important piece. He also let the emotional redirect (Ebert rehabilitating Fort's connection to his gym and his outrage at seeing his name misused) undo much of the cross's work. His cross of Phelps was ineffectively brief — three questions — when there were several productive angles available (e.g., exploring whether Bock's staff completed the paperwork, or whether the initial verbal agreement created any legal board membership). His approach to Parks was substantively the strongest — he extracted the critical 'I have no evidence she opened the email' admission and preserved the regulatory waiver argument — but he lost control at the end with the waiver question and was unable to develop the USDA Q19 argument before the judge shut it down. Udoibok repeatedly telegraphed his legal arguments through questions rather than letting witnesses answer, drawing multiple 'argumentative' and 'calls for speculation' sustained objections. He did not object to the government's leading style or to Parks's sweeping conclusory statements ('The names are fake. The ages are fake. The rosters are fake.'). Colich's cross of Moalim for Said was longer but similarly unfocused — he attempted prior-statement impeachment questions that were properly objected to as improper under the rules, and ended without a clear narrative that would help Said. Neither defense attorney called any witnesses or introduced any exhibits on this day.