CNN 5/22/2026
‘Mastermind’ of $250M Minnesota theft scheme gets 500-month prison sentence
as feds charge more people with fraud
By Andy Rose, Rob Kuznia, CNN
Updated: 8:13 PM EDT, Thu May 21, 2026
Source: CNN
The woman prosecutors have called the “mastermind” of a massive fraud scheme
to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in government aid was sentenced to
nearly 42 years in prison Thursday.
Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock received a 500-month sentence just over
a year after she was convicted of wire fraud and bribery.
“It’s a long sentence, and Aimee Bock did everything she could to earn it,”
former assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson said outside the courthouse.
The longest sentence in the most notorious case of federal fraud in Minnesota
came minutes before federal officials announced charges against 15 other
people accused of defrauding social service programs in the state.
More than $250 million in federal funds was taken in the Feeding Our Future
scheme overall, with only about $50 million of it recovered, authorities have
said. Bock was ordered to personally pay more than $242 million in
restitution.
“No matter how you cut it, it is a massive figure,” said Matthew Ebert,
another prosecutor who brought the case forward.
“I don’t have the words to express just how horrible I feel. I know I’m
responsible,” Bock told the judge shortly before sentencing Thursday,
according to The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Mark Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in
Minneapolis and a former federal prosecutor, said Bock’s sentence was
particularly harsh because the crime involved a coordinated effort that
affected taxpayers and children, unlike other scams where investors are the
victims.
“If I’m paying my taxes and it ends up going to scammers or taking food from
kids, there’s something really a little more sinister there,” Osler told CNN.
“The sentencing guidelines are largely driven by the amount of the loss, and
here you’ve got a really high number on that.”
One purpose of a long prison sentence in a white-collar case is deterrence,
Osler said. Bock’s role in the fraud was another factor.
Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, was
not surprised by Bock’s sentence.
“This happened over an extended period of time, and saying you’re giving food
to children and taking the money is about as horrific as you can get for
white-collar crime,” he said.
The scandal became a national flashpoint late last year when the Trump
administration cited it as a reason for an immigration crackdown in Minnesota
that provoked fierce protests in the streets. The fraud controversy also
loomed large over Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s decision in January not to seek a
third term.
Bock was one of the first people to stand trial in what federal prosecutors
have called one of the nation’s largest Covid-19-related frauds, exploiting
rules that were kept lax so the economy wouldn’t crash during the pandemic.
“Covid led to a general abandonment of principles around protecting these
programs,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services, said at a news conference on Thursday.
“The road to justice is not short,” defense attorney Kenneth U. Udiobok told
CNN after the sentencing. “Ms. Bock will proceed to the next phase. She is
devastated by the length of her sentence. But this is not the end of the
road!”
Both Thompson and Ebert, who pursued the Feeding Our Future investigation for
years, watched Bock’s sentencing as spectators. They were part of the group of
federal prosecutors in Minnesota who resigned earlier this year amid
disagreements with the Department of Justice over the response to the shooting
of Renee Good, a source familiar with the matter told CNN at the time.
More than a dozen people facing new fraud charges
Within minutes of Bock hearing her fate, federal officials held a news
conference at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota building
in Minneapolis, announcing the new charges in the Trump administration’s
continuing focus on fraud in the state.
The people charged are “fraudsters who treated Minnesota-run programs as their
personal piggybank,” Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said during the
news conference.
“This is not the end of our work in Minnesota. This is not the end of the
beginning of our work in Minnesota. This is the beginning of our work in
Minnesota,” he added.
The newly-announced cases involve theft of more than $90 million in taxpayer
money and are accompanied by an expansion of a “strike force” of federal
prosecutors in the Midwest to investigate allegations of fraud, McDonald said.
“Minnesotans are a generous people, and we believe in supporting folks who
need a helping hand,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a
statement. “It boils my blood that fraudsters are taking advantage of that
generosity, and my office and I will gladly partner with all those who are
also committed to holding fraudsters accountable.”
Allegations outlined in newly-unsealed court documents show one person is
accused of defrauding the Federal Child Nutrition Program and a state program
providing grants to child care providers, in part by falsifying the numbers of
meals served to children. Another, accused of defrauding a state program that
helps child care centers pay staff, is alleged to have inflated the number of
staffers and their hours worked.
One of the defendants, Fahima Mahamud, had already been charged with fraud
connected to the Feeding Our Futures program in February. Her business was one
of several in the Twin Cities area shown in a high-profile video made by
conservative content creator Nick Shirley in December.
Mahamud has not yet entered a plea, and her attorney did not respond to CNN’s
request for comment Thursday.
Some charges also involved allegations that children were falsely being
diagnosed with autism in order to receive government money, what McDonald
called the “largest autism fraud scheme ever charged by the Department of
Justice.”
“This was not a paperwork error. It was not a technical violation,” said
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “This was organized
theft that exploited the most vulnerable children in America.”
Another defendant is Muhammad Omar, who is charged with healthcare fraud
involving a Housing Stabilization Services company with fraudulent claims. He
was arrested Thursday after attempting to get away. CNN is working to
determine whether Omar has legal representation.
“He was so desperate to escape, he jumped out of the fourth-floor building
that he lives in … He hobbled away, and subsequently, FBI was able to arrest
him,” Oz told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “This man brazenly took three and a half
million dollars out of one of these housing stabilization programs.”
While the Twin Cities area has received tremendous negative attention in the
recent focus on fraud, the largest total for alleged fraud in the newly
released documents is in a case involving group homes for people with
disabilities in rural southern Minnesota.
“These disabled individuals were used like lottery tickets by these defendants
to generate millions of dollars,” McDonald said.
The businesses owned by Charles Healey and Katherin Larsen-Guthmiller
allegedly made more than $22 million in fraudulent billings to the state’s
Medicaid-funded Individualized Home Supports program to expand their real
estate holdings around the community of Blue Earth and for personal use.
The defendants used some of the money for luxury purchases “such as vehicles,
including an Aston Martin, three Porsches, and three Teslas, and expensive
jewelry, including five Rolex watches,” the indictment states.
The business was closed in December, state records show. Their court record
does not list an attorney for Healey and Larsen-Guthmiller, and CNN was not
able to find phone numbers or email addresses for them.
Shortly after his funding was cut off by the state, Healey told the Faribault
County Register he was being investigated for what he characterized as “minor
infractions.”
“There has never been even a whiff of fraud in our operation,” Healey said in
December.
New charges follow high-profile Minnesota raids last month
The charges come three weeks after a federal official said 22 search warrants
were executed in Minnesota as part of a long-running fraud investigation in
the state.
McDonald said fraud in Minnesota was not a victimless crime. He described how
a “fraudster” neglected a man who was supposed to be receiving 24-hour care.
“This patient was later found dead,” he said. “Meanwhile, the architect of
this fraud scheme was billing Medicaid as if he was providing care to this
patient. The defendant even submitted a claim of over $400 for services he
never provided the day before this man died.”
Oz made a point during the event to credit Shirley, who was sitting with the
media. Shirley was not the first to report on the allegations of widespread
fraud in Minnesota, but his viral video catapulted those allegations into a
national spotlight and was widely promoted by leaders in the Trump
administration.
“Perhaps if you want to serve, come join us, but if you can’t serve, do what
you can to shine a light on these cases,” Oz said, recognizing that many
people are “angry and frustrated” about the fraud cases.
Asked what Minnesota needed to do to restore funding halted by the federal
government, Oz noted the state has “a $3 billion rainy day fund” for social
service programs.
“We’re not taking the money away from Minnesota. We’re deferring its payment.
They’re hopefully going to get back with us within the next month or two,” Oz
told CNN, adding state officials have been asked to revalidate their service
providers.
The federal officials on Thursday repeatedly stressed that they are engaged in
a campaign against fraud that is unprecedented for its speed and intensity,
and sought to strike fear into people who defraud the government.
“My message to the fraudsters, is this: Eat, drink and be merry today,”
McDonald said. “Because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered. We
are doing everything we can to find you, and when we do, we will prosecute
you, and we will claw back every dollar you have stolen from the American
people.”
_This story has been updated with additional information._
_CNN’s Whitney Wild, Chris Boyette, Kara Devlin, Ray Sanchez and Hanna Park
contributed to this report._
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