MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Minnesota’s attorney general has asked a court to oversee the dissolution of a Twin Cities nonprofit under investigation for potential money laundering and fraud.
Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a petition in Dakota County Thursday after his office began investigating the nonprofit.
Ellison’s investigation found “reasonable grounds to believe that Feeding Our Future and its officers and directors have, among other things, failed to properly administer and use assets held for charitable purposes.”
In January, federal agents executed search warrants on more than a dozen properties connected to Feeding Our Future. Investigators said almost none of the nonprofit’s money went towards feeding children and instead had been laundered through shell organizations before it was spent on cars and luxury properties.
The organization filed for dissolution Feb. 24. At the time, Feeding Our Future said it provided meals to more than 30,000 children in BIPOC communities throughout the Twin Cities and “did a lot of great work for the community.” Its executive director, Aimee Bock, called it “heartbreaking that the organization must dissolve under these unfortunate circumstances.”
Ellison’s petition alleges Feeding Our Future failed to register with the attorney general’s office — as required by state law for a charitable organization — until two years after it began operating in 2017. Ellison also alleges the nonprofit did not submit annual reports, also a legal requirement, to his office until Jan. 28 of this year.
The FBI froze Feeding Our Future’s assets in January. According to the petition, “the corporation is insolvent or at risk of becoming insolvent,” and Bock is the only remaining employee.
Ellison has asked for court supervision “to protect against potential fraud and waste, ensure proper oversight over the corporation pending dissolution, reduce potential harm to the corporation’s interests that could result from having an officer who is the subject to a criminal investigation directing its affairs, provide for the orderly disposition of assets, and minimize prejudice to the Attorney General’s ongoing investigation.”
No one has been criminally charged in this case.
Source: CBS