Matthew Ebert News Today

An investigator said identical names appeared over and over, in many cases as part of payment claims for meals served simultaneously at distribution sites miles apart. He said that the same 122 children were listed in reimbursement requests for meals served in April 2021.

Three children all named "John Doe" allegedly received free food. So did a child named "Friday Donations" month after month. And a child named "Getsaname Hester" was listed more than a dozen times in attendance rosters at food distribution sites run by defendants in the first Feeding Our Future trial. None of those names matched names of students enrolled at 20 public school districts across ...

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.

In a Minneapolis courtroom Monday, federal prosecutors laid out their case that six men and one woman launched the nation’s biggest pandemic relief fraud from a tiny East African restaurant in Shakopee. There, they collected millions in cash purloined from a federal program meant to feed hungry children. The post Prosecutor shows texts bragging about stacks of cash as Feeding Our Future trial begins appeared first on Minnesota Reformer.

BY: DEENA WINTER MINNEAPOLIS (Minnesota Reformer) - In a Minneapolis courtroom Monday, federal prosecutors lai...

Attorneys for defendants in the first Feeding Our Future trial argued Monday that they served "real food" to children in need across Minnesota, refuting prosecutors' claims of a widespread fraud scheme. Instead, defense attorneys who made their first opening statements Monday argued that defendants navigated a complex federal meal program that was upended in the COVID-19 pandemic. The ...

Opening statements began Monday in the first trial in the Feeding Our Future fraud case. Seven people are facing charges connected to the investigation into the theft of millions of dollars in federal funds, in what the FBI is calling the largest COVID-19 pandemic relief fraud scheme to be uncovered. 

Prosecutors say seven defendants schemed to steal $47 million from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs by falsifying attendance rosters and food invoices. Defense attorneys said their clients were following the rules and feeding children.

With 60 people charged in the sweeping case, trial date disputes and plea deals could create uncertainty and drama.

Snow has begun to melt over most of the 850 square-mile area Allegra Waterman-Snow and her team studied during the last grazing season. They were tasked with studying grazing allotments on Bureau of Land Management...