A man who already pleaded guilty to fraud in the Feeding Our Future case on Monday told jurors he stole millions of dollars from the government and paid kickbacks to the nonprofit in exchange for sponsorship in the Federal Child Nutrition Program.

Prosecutors say Aimee Bock, the former executive director of Feeding our Future, as well as her co-defendant, Salim Said, orchestrated the fraud worth $250 million in federal funding meant to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abdulkadir Awale agreed to testify at the trial of Bock and Said on Monday as part of his plea deal.

Awale said he enrolled his businesses, Karmel Coffee, LLC, Sambusa King, Inc. and Nawal Restaurant, Inc. in the Federal Child Nutrition Program, sponsored by Feeding Our Future.

Awale falsely claimed to serve more than 3.6 million meals through his three restaurants, totaling $11.8 million, according to court records.

Awale also admitted to paying over $83,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee in exchange for participating in the program.

He told jurors that he paid Feeding Our Future — and Bock — money to cover attorney fees after a lawsuit involving Bock and the Minnesota Department of Education. Awale said Bock and other Feeding Our Future employees asked for donations at a meeting in 2021.

Awale ended up paying $5,000 to Feeding Our Future and $2,800 to School Age Consultants, an entity that listed Bock as the account owner.

Before court broke for lunch, Judge Nancy Brasel reminded Awale that nobody is allowed to speak with him about his testimony. He was instructed to tell his attorney if anyone tried to speak with him during lunch break or after testifying. The warning comes after allegations of witness tampering last week.

The government’s next witness was Beth Shipman, the senior vice president of compliance and BSA for Bridgewater Bank. She testified about four accounts associated with Said, telling jurors that the bank closed his accounts due to suspicious activity.

Earlier in the day, attorneys finished questioning FBI Special Agent Jared Kary, who began his second round of testimony last week. He told jurors about two supposed sites housed at 2854 Columbus Avenue — a site that the FBI surveilled and found few children. Bock told MDE in an email, “We have certified that it is different youth being served at each of the locations in the building,” but Kary said that was false.

Jurors also heard from Gabrielle Raines, a custodian of records for Google, about co-defendants emailing each other and the emails going through out-of-state servers.

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