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MINNEAPOLIS — <\/span>The former leader of a Minnesota nonprofit who was convicted for her role at the center of a staggering $250 million fraud case that helped ignite a federal immigration crackdown should spend 50 years in prison, prosecutors argued in a court filing.<\/p>\n Aimee Bock, who ran the organization Feeding our Future<\/a>, which claimed it helped provide millions of meals to children in need during the pandemic, is set to be sentenced Thursday in federal court in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n \u201cFeeding Our Future operated like a cash pipeline, open to anyone willing to submit fraudulent claims and pay kickbacks,\u201d prosecutors said in the Monday filing. \u201cThe ripple effects of her actions are profound, immeasurable, and will have lasting consequences for both Minnesota and the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Bock was convicted<\/a> last year of multiple counts involving conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery. She has long insisted she is innocent.<\/p>\n Her lawyer, Kenneth Udoibok, argued in a separate filing that she shouldn’t have to serve for more than 37 months in prison, saying she had provided information to investigators. He argued that Bock had been unfairly painted as the mastermind and insisted that two co-defendants were responsible for running the scams.<\/p>\n The nonprofit sat atop a fraud network that included a web of partner organizations, phony distribution sites, kickbacks and fake lists of children supposedly being fed, prosecutors say. Dozens of people, many from the state\u2019s large Somali community, have been convicted for their roles in a series of overlapping food fraud cases that have spent years in the courts.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump, who has long derided Somalis, last year blasted the state as \u201ca hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.\u201d He criticized the leadership of Gov. Tim Walz,<\/a> the Democrats\u2019 vice presidential nominee in the 2024 election, and pointed to the frauds<\/a> as justification for launching the immigration crackdown<\/a> that shook the city.<\/p>\n \u201cSomali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from,\u201d Trump wrote on social media.<\/p>\n Bock is white and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office says the overwhelming majority of defendants in the cases are of Somali descent. Most are U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n