(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Embezzling $250 Million During Covid Meant For Ensuring Kids Got Fed? How Sh-tty Of You... [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-13 US Attorney for Minnesota, Andy Luger Earlier today Minnesota US Attorney Andy Luger announced more indictments in a Covid-relief scandal known as Feeding Our Future. Never heard of it? Understandable. It got missed during the run-up to the 2022 elections. But rest assured, it was definitely known in these parts. And the scale of it all is kind of breath-taking to say the least. Some background: During Covid, the federal government doled out millions to states to help provide meals for kids who would otherwise have gone without due to not getting meals in their schools. A Minneapolis-based non-profit, Feeding Our Future, signed up to help distribute those dollars, which was administered by the state’s Department of Education. By July 2020, the Dept. of Ed notified Feeding that it was: “...concerned about its rapidly growing number of vendors, which are also called food sites.” Yet it was months before any sort of investigation began. The Sahan Journal, an excellent outlet in Minneapolis, has a great timeline of events relating to the situation, one that grew more and more brazen by the week. As reported by Sahan: One site in Willmar claimed to be feeding 2,000 children per week—a number that would represent half the school-aged children in town. But only 33 names on the feeding site’s reimbursement list matched names of real children from the school district. Or as reported by the local NBC affiliate: At his press conference, Luger used the example of new defendant Kawsar Jama to illustrate the allegations of brazen fraud. He said Jama claimed to be serving 2,560 meals per day at a site in Pelican Rapids, which has a total population of 2,500, and received $3.7 million from the federal meal programs. "She forged a phony lease and submitted it with her application to make it look like she was serving at a place in Pelican Rapids," Luger said. "She claimed to be serving everyone living in Pelican Rapids, every day, whether they were children or not, whether they were needy or not." Jama went on to turn in phony invoices to make it look like she was buying food, but there was no food and no children, according to Luger, who said the defendant even made up fake names of the kids she claimed to serve. The US Attorney’s Office has done an admirable job both investigating and bringing forward indictments on the matter. But of course, the whole mess got wrapped up on politics — specifically the 2022 Minnesota Gubernatorial and Attorney General races. When the scandal broke questions were asked of Gov Walz and AG Ellison as to why did didn’t do something about the scandal. Their answer was simple (sort of): In the fall of 2020, when MDE first confronted Feeding Our Future about its suspicious growth, Feeding Our Future responded by threatening a lawsuit. This is when the Attorney General’s Office stepped in. From that point forward, the Attorney General’s Office was by MDE’s side through all stages of the litigation and investigation. In November 2020, Feeding Our Future sued MDE. This timeline is laid out in the affidavit in support of the FBI’s January 2022 search warrants against Feeding Our Future (see paragraphs 73-75). In the spring of 2021, MDE contacted the FBI with its concern that Feeding Our Future was committing criminal fraud, and the FBI began to investigate. This timeline is laid out in the FBI’s January 2022 affidavit (see paragraphs 51-53). Subsequently, representatives of Attorney General Ellison’s office met confidentially with the FBI on a regular basis to cooperate fully with the investigation. The FBI repeatedly made it clear to the Attorney General’s Office and MDE that it should not disclose the existence of the investigation in Feeding Our Future’s state court lawsuit so that it could proceed without tipping off Feeding Our Future and the target of the investigation. The right-wing media did its best to portray Walz and Ellison as some sort of bumbling Keystone Cops in all of it. And honestly, Walz did not exactly help himself in the matter at one point: A Ramsey County judge is pushing back against Gov. Tim Walz’s comments that his court ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to restart payments to Feeding Our Future, which is now the subject of the largest alleged pandemic fraud case in the United States. Through all the election hubbub, which saw both Walz and Ellison re-elected, the MN US Attorney’s Office kept on investigating. As of today, nearly sixty people have been indicted. All told they have been accused of embezzling over $250 million in funds intended to feed kids during Covid. Instead, some of them used the pilfered dollars to purchase: eight pieces of property in Minnesota, Kentucky, and Ohio seven cars, including a Porsche Macan and Tesla Model Y bank accounts holding millions of dollars miscellaneous electrical devices, jewelry, clothing, and accessories a Louis Vuitton duffle bag seized from a 2021 Dodge Ram 1500. Yes, the wheels of justice can move aggravatingly slow at times. Today’s indictments — watch the press conference announcing them here — shows however that justice can happen. Am I not giving all the details? Sure. It’s a huge and complicated prosecution. If you are interested, the US Attorney’s Office outlines the facts here and here. And here’s to hoping that everyone who took part in this scheme to quite literally take food from the mouths of kids get what they have coming. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/13/2157917/-Embezzling-250-Million-During-Covid-Meant-For-Ensuring-Kids-Got-Fed-How-Shitty-Of-You Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/