‘Not possible’ to deliver as many meals as Feeding Our Future defendants claimed, school official says
A Shakopee school district official testified Monday that it would have been impossible to deliver food in the quantities allegedly claimed by the defendants in the Feeding Our Future trial.
Seven people with ties to Empire Cuisine and Market, a small Shakopee restaurant, are charged with stealing $47 million from government child nutrition programs by submitting fraudulent reimbursement claims as part of what federal prosecutors say was a much wider conspiracy to fleece taxpayers out of $250 million.
In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert showed jurors spreadsheets where the defendants allegedly claimed to have served as many as 1,000 children per day during the COVID-19 pandemic at Clifton Townhomes in Shakopee.
In response to Ebert’s questions, Shakopee Schools finance and operations director Bill Menozzi said that he “was honored” to help his colleagues deliver meals via school bus to children at that complex and nine other sites when schools were closed and students were engaged in distance learning.
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Ebert asked Menozzi if at any point the district delivered 93,000 meals to Clifton Townhomes in a single month, as the defendants allegedly claimed when requesting reimbursement from the nutrition programs for meals served in March 2021.
“I don’t believe that would be possible,” Menozzi replied. He noted that the parking area is too small to accommodate a large number of people and said that district staff served fewer than 20 children each day at the apartment complex. Menozzi added he saw no one else delivering food there.
Menozzi testified later that district staff delivered meals to no more than four dozen children each day at Sarazin Flats and Bonnevista Terrace mobile home park, two other locations in Shakopee where the defendants allegedly claimed to have served hundreds of children daily.
Defense attorneys have said that the bundling of meals for bulk pickup accounts for the large numbers that their clients claimed.
Several other witnesses testified Monday in support of the government’s case that the defendants either served no food at meal sites for which they claimed reimbursement or grossly exaggerated their claims.
William Walker, who was site supervisor for The Landing Minnesota River Heritage Park during the pandemic, said that he never saw anyone deliver or pick up meals there.
The defendants allegedly claimed that one of their nonprofits, the Mind Foundry Learning Foundation, also known as the ThinkTechAct Foundation, served 97,544 meals at the park from July through December of 2020.
Walker told Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Walcker that The Landing is one of the least-visited Three Rivers Park District facilities and that staff monitor the grounds daily.
“If a big group of people is in the park, it’s unlikely that our staff wouldn’t have been aware of them,” Walker said. “It would be difficult to imagine a situation where we wouldn’t be aware that people were in the park.”
Walker added that the picnic shelter, the only place that conceivably could accommodate a meal distribution site, was closed to visitors during the pandemic.
John Ruhland, a maintenance supervisor for Three Rivers, testified separately that he never saw food delivery trucks at The Landing, nor did he see people lining up to pick up the meals. Ruhland added that if there had been large numbers of visitors, the park’s gravel parking lot would have required extensive regrading.
Damaris Graffunder, who owns a gas station and convenience store in Apple Valley, testified that she “saw a few, but not many” people lining up for food at an adjacent child care center.
Prosecutors allege that the defendants claimed to have served 445,020 meals from February to December of 2021 at Scott Park, which is near the child care center.
Graffunder testified that on at least one occasion, she saw adults lining up for baskets of vegetables at the child care center, but she never saw anyone receive packaged, ready-to-eat meals.
During Graffunder’s testimony, attorney Patrick Cotter, who represents Empire Cuisine co-owner Mohamed Ismail, showed Graffunder video of a long line of people waiting to enter the child care center. The clip ended inside the building, where those who’d been waiting appeared to receive food.
Cotter asked Judge Nancy Brasel if he could show the footage to jurors, but Walcker objected, noting that Cotter did not offer foundational information about who shot the video and when it was recorded.
On cross examination, defense attorneys asked Graffunder and the other government witnesses when the FBI first asked them to recall events from 2021. Most said that investigators initially approached them in the last few months.
The seven defendants are the first to face trial in connection with the investigation of Feeding Our Future. They’re among 70 people charged since the FBI raided the nonprofit’s offices and two dozen other locations in January 2022. Eighteen people have pleaded guilty.