Federal prosecutors are demanding a 50-year prison sentence for Aimee Bock, the former nonprofit leader convicted of mastermind status in a staggering $250 million pandemic food aid scam.

Bock, who served as the executive director of Feeding Our Future, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in a Minneapolis federal court. Her organization claimed to provide millions of meals to children in need during the COVID-19 pandemic, but prosecutors say it instead functioned as a massive "cash pipeline" driven by fraudulent claims, fake lists of children, and bribery kickbacks, News.Az reports, citing NBC News.

A jury convicted Bock last year on multiple counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and bribery. While she has maintained her innocence, prosecutors argued in a recent court filing that the ripple effects of her actions have had "profound, immeasurable, and lasting consequences" for both Minnesota and the country.

The sprawling fraud network involved dozens of individuals and partner organizations, many from Minnesota's Somali community. The fallout from the case has reverberated through national politics, fueling a federal immigration crackdown and drawing sharp criticism from President Donald Trump, who previously used the fraud to target state leadership and the local Somali population.

Bock’s defense attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, has pushed for a significantly lighter sentence of no more than 37 months. The defense argues that Bock cooperated with investigators and has been unfairly scapegoated as the ringleader, shifting blame instead to two of her co-defendants.

However, with $250 million missing and a web of phony distribution sites left in the wake of the scheme, the government is pushing for one of the most severe sentences in recent white-collar criminal history.

News.Az 

By Aysel Mammadzada