Your correspondent was there for Day 4 of the trial testimony of Aimee Bock, the founder and CEO of the free-food nonprofit Feeding Our Future.
Bock is on trial in the scandal in Federal court in downtown Minneapolis along with one co-defendant, Salim Said, co-owner of the Safari Restaurant in south Minneapolis.
Bock’s cross examination continued this morning with the topic of conversation centered around her no good, cheating louse of a live-in boyfriend, Empress Malcolm Watson, Jr. (his real name).
Bock continued this morning to vouch for the quality of the drywall work (worth $900,000) performed at her St. Anthony corporate offices. However, a later text message from Bock to Watson was shown to the jury where she complains bitterly about the quality of some drywall work done by Watson in the basement of their shared Rosemount home. Apparently, residential construction isn’t Watson’s forte. Bock suggested that Watson’s effort would have to be torn out and replaced, presumably by a different contractor.
It would appear that corporate drywall work is extremely high profit margin. Jurors were shown many receipts for much high-dollar spending out of Watson’s corporate account (Handy-Helper’s LLC, hyphen and apostrophe in the original), unrelated to any construction work.
The lead prosecutor, Joe Thompson, highlighted two trips to Las Vegas paid for with corporate funds where Aimee Bock accompanied her boyfriend.
In January 2021, Watson rented a Lamborghini Aventador, lime green in color. The couple took the car for a drive in the desert, where Bock reports becoming carsick. She says she vomited while on the journey, let’s hope not in the interior. The one-day rental cost was $2,300. The car claims a horsepower (hp) rating of between 690 and 780, depending on the trim level.
Day two, Watson switched to the Lamborghini Urus, with a more modest hp rating.
Day three, Watson went back to the Aventador.
To recap, in trip one, that’s two (due) Lamborghini.
The second trip came in March 2021, and the couple was accompanied by Watson’s father, Empress Malcolm Watson, Sr. (I’m not kidding). This time the ride was a more modest Rolls Royce, from which Bock reported no ill effects.
Aimee and Empress Jr. were photographed standing in front of the suicide-style driver’s door of the Rolls. The Las Vegas junket included a stop at Louis Vuitton, where Watson Jr. purchased a handsome backpack.
Next, the discussion turned to the existence, or lack thereof, of Feeding Our Future’s board of directors. The jurors were shown board minutes with apparently forged signatures. Forged by whom? No one could say.
Much of the Bock lawyer’s re-direct examination returned to the subject of The Learning Journey LLC, the never-opened childcare center sold by Bock to members of the Safari Restaurant group of defendants for $310,000 in August 2021.
In Bock’s testimony, she mentions having a partner in the never-opened childcare business, Shafi Qanyare. The name Qanyare has come up before in the case, but he has never been charged with, or accused of, any wrongdoing. It’s not clear whether Qanyare received any portion of the purchase price.
At this point, the Bock defense rested.
After lunch, it was the turn of Salim Said’s defense lawyers to present his case. It was announced that Said planned to testify in his own defense, but only after the appearance of two defense witnesses.
With the jury out of the room, it was revealed that both Said defense witnesses had been paid large amounts of money by Said and his business partners during the Covid-era.
Prosecutors warned that, given the facts already in evidence, their testimony could be used against them in a future investigation or prosecution, if any.
So, it was determined that each witness be assigned a separate public defender to advise them of their 5th Amendment rights to not testify in the case.
As the hour drew late, we only had time for the first witness, “social media influencer” and videographer Mohamed Mohamud Liban. Mr. Liban testified in the Somali language with the help of an interpreter. Liban originally hails from Mogadishu, but currently resides in Richfield.
From my layman’s standpoint it seemed that the prosecutor, the judge, and Liban’s court-appointed attorney were all doing their best to discourage Liban from testifying. Yet, he persisted, nonetheless.
Before Liban took the stand, and with the jury still out of the room, the prosecutor suggested that Liban’s hiring, and the timing of his hiring, may be indicative of an effort to create an alibi for those who eventually would become defendants in the case.
Liban was hired to document, via video, food preparation at the Safari-related sites in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, St. Cloud, Mankato and Willmar. The jury was shown many of his videos, each clip just a few seconds long.
Liban described the videos as “advertisements” encouraging patrons to pick up their free food at a specific address and time.
For his efforts, Liban was paid $195,000 by the Safari defendants over a nine-month period in 2021. Liban likes his money.
To accommodate his new business dealings with the Safari Restaurant group, Liban incorporated Shimbirka LLC in late February 2021. Corporate records give Shimbirka’s address as 2219 Oakland Ave. in south Minneapolis. This multi-tenant office building has come up frequently over the course of the free-food scandal.
Included in the $195,000, was $42,000 provided by the St. Paul-based food wholesaler Afro Produce.
Among the items purchased by Liban from his share of the video work were a Toyota SUV and a trip to Kenya. Alas, when the free-food money dried up in January 2022, Liban was forced to return to his previous occupation of Uber driver to make ends meet.
In the course of his testimony, Liban was asked to describe in detail the internal layout of Safari Restaurant. Liban’s description included Safari’s adjacent events center. The banquet hall hosted weddings, parties, and (I quote Liban as saying) “anything related to the elections.” (Wait, what?)
The apparent purpose of Liban’s appearance on the stand was to confirm that the Safari defendants served at least some free food during this time period. But at its heart, this case is about overbilling. Liban made a point of never endorsing any meal counts submitted contemporaneously with the shooting of his videos. Instead, he consistently advised the court to “check with the managers” of each site to confirm claimed numbers.
With that, court adjourned for the week. Said’s defense will resume Monday morning, with closing statements now expected to occur on Tuesday.