The Trump administration has justified its continued immigration The crackdown Citing the need to prevent fraud in Minnesota and pointing to a broader scandal involving members of the Somali American community. But prosecutors say the state masterminds it the biggest Fraudulent scheme Not a Somali on today’s date but a white woman – 45-year-old Amy Buck.
In an exclusive interview from his jail cell, Buck defended his conduct, admitted remorse and argued that the state officials who worked with him should bear some of the blame. It was the first time Buck spoke publicly since his arrest for his role in what prosecutors say was a $250 million Covid-era effort to defraud a federal program to feed hungry children.
“I wish I could go back and do things differently, stop things, catch things,” said Buck, who headed Feeding Our Future, the now-infamous nonprofit that signed up to receive taxpayer money to provide food to restaurants and caterers. “I believed we were doing everything in our power to protect the program.”
So far prosecutors have charged 78 defendants Associated with Feeding Our Future, more than 60 have been convicted or convicted at trial. All are Somali Americans except Amy Buck.
Amy Buck in a Minnesota prison. / Credit: CBS News
(CBS News)
During a five-week trial last year, prosecutors alleged that Buck signed off on reimbursement claims for millions of meals that never arrived. He was also accused of taking bribe. Together, he and the food site operators were accused of stealing millions of federal dollars. spending it In luxury cars, real estate ventures and vacations.
“That money didn’t go to feed the kids,” Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick said. “It was used to fund their lavish lifestyle.”
a jury found him guilty In all calculations. She is currently awaiting sentencing and faces up to 33 years in prison. Evidence presented at trial included text messages where Buck compared Feeding Our Future to the mob.
“The jury saw overwhelming evidence of what Bok knew,” lead prosecutor Joe Thompson said after the verdict. “She was at the head of the scheme from day one. She signed off on every fraud claim submitted to the state of Minnesota.”
Buck told CBS News that he is neither a mastermind nor a mob boss.
“It was heartbreaking,” Buck said, describing the moment she heard the verdict. “I believe in accountability. If I had done this, I would have pleaded guilty. I would not have gone to trial. I would not have put my children and my family through what we went through. I lost everything.”
Last month, Judge Dr Ordered him to disappear More than $5 million in income from the scheme.
“We depended on the state”
Millions federal officials seized from him were sitting in bank accounts for non-profits, and Buck denied that he personally lived a lavish lifestyle. She downplayed the items found when FBI agents raided her home in 2022 — the home she had lived in for more than a decade.
“They found minimal jewelry,” Buck said. “I think it was like two pairs of earrings, a bracelet, a watch. There was some cash.”
Buck’s attorney, Kenneth Udoiboke, shared a video showing stockpiles of food at meal sites run by Feeding Our Future contractors. Buck said she is doing everything in her power to root out fraud and has terminated contracts with dozens of organizations she believes cheated the system.
“I’m the only one who stopped the claim and said, ‘This is fraud,'” Buck said. “There are tens of millions of dollars in claims that we didn’t pay, that we denied.”
The sudden growth of Buck’s organization was astonishing. In 2019, Feeding Our Future submitted $3.4 million worth of food claims. In 2021, it introduced about $200 million. Buck attributed the increase to relaxed guidelines during the pandemic that allowed parents to pick up food and bring it home. Asked if the spike in volume raised red flags at the time, Buck claimed she got a sign-off from Minnesota officials.
“We were relying on the state,” she said, adding that Rep. Local officials, including Ilhan Omar, often visited food places. “We told the state, this site is going to operate at this address, this time, and this number of children. The state will tell us that’s approved.”
Omar has denied knowing about the people defrauding the food program and has previously condemned the misuse of funds. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has drawn Extensive investigation For his handling Fraud in the state. But Walz has defended his administration’s response, saying “we’ve spent years cracking down on fraud” and accused the Trump administration of “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
Udoibok, Buck’s lawyer, said state officials were not particularly interested in preventing fraud at the time, because the nonprofit provided at least some food to important constituencies during a time of significant instability.
“What is a lie is that they were at any time policing this fraudulent activity,” Udoibok said. “They wanted a scapegoat. She ran the only food program in the state, so they pinned it on her.”
A spokesman for Walz did not respond to a request for comment.
“No one wants to be labeled racist”
After Buck spoke to CBS News The murder of Renee GoodeAs did Minneapolis A flashpoint Under pressure from the administration to control illegal immigration. According to Buck, some of the people picked up in the ICE sweep are now being held in jails where they are being held pending sentencing.
In some ways, it’s possible to trace the origins of the current tension to Buck and his nonprofit sector in Minnesota. Goode was killed by an ICE agent after the Department of Homeland Security stepped up Thousands of employees In a state with a dual mandate to help enforce immigration laws and investigate fraud.
Before long the issue of cheating became a big issue for rights – and fodder conservative influencers – Federal prosecutors in Minnesota zeroed in on the buck. A lifelong Minnesotan, Buck earned a degree in elementary education and held roles in day care and early childhood centers before starting Feeding Our Future in 2016.
“Our goal as an organization was to reach out to kids who don’t have food,” said Buck, who has two sons of her own. “There’s such a dire need in Minnesota, these food deserts, where kids don’t have access to healthy nutritious food.”
The nonprofit became a so-called “sponsor” for two federal nutrition programs funded by the Department of Agriculture and overseen by Minnesota’s Department of Education that paid for children’s meals during the school year and during the summer. When COVID hit, the USDA issued a waiver that gave sponsors like Feeding Our Future more flexibility in how they distributed food.
“During COVID, for obvious reasons, parents were allowed to come and get food,” Buck explained. “So we were suddenly able to reach more children. We were also able to deliver food to homes.”
Restaurants and diners from Minnesota’s large Somali immigrant community were especially eager to sign up. Buck said his organization was in a good position to meet the need, but state education officials were wary of allowing some businesses that applied.
“The Department of Education was sitting on the application,” Buck said. “They weren’t processing them.”
After racial justice protests swept the country after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Buck filed a lawsuit accusing the state’s screening of Somali applicants as discriminatory and denying access to “much-needed federal food programs” to low-income and minority children.
Asked how she believed state officials received the lawsuit, Buck admitted “nobody wants to be labeled as a racist.”
That aggressive advocacy won him praise from the tight-knit Somali community. One community leader called Bok a “modern-day Robin Hood” to a local reporter.
Buck rejected the lawsuit’s intimidation tactics. The parties reached a settlement in which the Minnesota Department of Education agreed to process applications for the meal program “reasonably promptly.”
“The state government is paralyzed and has the perception that this level of fraud should be allowed because they’re afraid of what they can do in a lawsuit,” Buck said.
Years later, education officials told a state watchdog that “threats of legal consequences and negative media attention” threatened to ease them. Still, Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) officials insist they acted, saying they referred Bock to the FBI in 2021.
“Despite offenders taking advantage of the program, MDE met or exceeded federal regulations,” the education commissioner wrote in a letter to the state watchdog. “At all times MDE made its best judgment regarding legal requirements and its right to oversight in the context of pushback.”
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