Attorneys question FBI special agent on 3rd day of Feeding Our Future trial

On day three of the jury trial for Feeding Our Future Executive/Founder Aimee Bock and co-owner of Safari Restaurant, Salim Said, attorneys questioned FBI Special Agent Jared Kary, who was one of the case agents for the investigation.

He explained to jurors how the FBI became involved following reports of suspected fraud from the Minnesota Department of Education, and unlawful bank activity.

Kary said one of the first steps was to subpoena bank records — the FBI issued around 1,200 subpoenas and received 4.4 million pages of records.

Law enforcement also executed search warrants on email accounts and physical locations. In January of 2022, they executed 27 search warrants at locations across the Twin Cities. Kary called the effort the “largest amount of law enforcement resources used in the history of Minnesota,” with agencies assisting from across the country.

While collecting evidence, the FBI created a chart, which was shown in court, of the sites with the top number of meal and monetary claims. Safari Restaurant ranked on top for both, with 3.9 million meals and claiming over $12.1 million.

A Minneapolis city official also sent Abdulkadir Salah, the other co-owner of Safari Restaurant, an email with several issues and violations, including:

• Lack of active managerial control
• Improper food and equipment storage
• Equipment and utensils not properly cleaned
• Lack of sufficient temperature logs

Prosecutors showed claims and meal counts from the same time frame as the violations, meaning that Safari Restaurant was reportedly claiming to feed thousands of children per day while the violations were occurring.

The jury was then shown short videos from two Feeding Our Future sites: Safari Restaurant and ASA Limited (which was housed at Gurey Deli in Maplewood). Both sites claimed to have served several thousand kids per day, but none were seen in the video.

Kary, who had watched the hours of surveillance as part of the investigation, testified that, on average, he would only see around 40 people per day get meals from Safari and 23 per day at ASA Limited — “definitely not” thousands.

Bock’s defense attorney responded that it could have been possible for trucks to be out delivering food from Safari Restaurant’s back door, which wasn’t seen on camera.

Prosecutors also showed the jury attendance spreadsheets from ASA Limited — Kary testified that the spreadsheets were filled with computer-generated names of fake children. In one of the spreadsheets, he told jurors that if a name was clicked on, the link would bring the user to an online name generator.

“It was apparent based on this information that names were being generated on the rosters to be submitted [for claims],” Kary testified.

You can find KSTP’s full coverage of the Feeding Our Future case here.