The Star Tribune — I think it must be reporter Jeffrey Meitrodt — has come into possession of confidential FBI witness interviews in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud case. By motion dated April 28, the prosecutors state:
[O]n April 21, 2026, the government learned that a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune had contacted a lawyer representing a cooperating witness in the Feeding Our Future case. The reporter stated to the lawyer that they had obtained copies of reports of two of the witnesses’ law enforcement interviews and intended to quote extensively from them in an upcoming article about the conduct of certain uncharged individuals. On April 24, 2026, the government learned from another lawyer that this same reporter had claimed to have over one hundred law enforcement interview reports (specifically, FBI FD-302 reports) that they would be quoting from in their upcoming article. Given the nature of the documents, they could only have come from the government’s discovery disclosures, in violation of the
Court’s Protective Order.
In part the Star Tribune’s possession and use of these documents threaten the prosecution of fraud cases in the future by exposing the cooperation of witnesses — witnesses who may never have been charged and were just trying to do the right thing. As the government puts it in the pending motion, “Bock’s leaking of protected material into the public domain is directly and highly harmful not only to the government’s prosecution, but also to the safety of those witnesses who have chosen to come forward and speak to law enforcement.”
Bock is a wildly manipulative character. She has recruited her sons to participate in the dissemination of the confidential witness interviews to the Star Tribune and coordinated their efforts on her behalf. As the government explains, this is all part of Bock’s scheme to divert blame for her guilt and for the harm she has done in contemplation of the sentence she is scheduled to receive from Judge Nancy Brasel on May 21 (“[Bock] is using these protected materials solely for the improper purpose of waging a public relations campaign in advance of sentencing, rehashing her failed, self-serving, trial defense that she attempted to combat fraud but was thwarted by state administrators”).
The motion raises issues that must be of serious concern to Judge Brasel, who has been assigned all the Feeding Our Future cases charged to date. She ordered Bock attorney Ken Ukdoibok to respond to the government’s motion the day after it was filed (yesterday) and set it on for hearing today (at 1:00 p.m.). To say the least, this is highly expedited treatment of the motion, akin to the urgency with which Judge Jeffrey Bryan treated the case of the illegal alien’s missing shoelace in one of the numerous habeas cases before him.
Udoibok filed his response as ordered yesterday afternoon. Udoibok’s memorandum opposes the imposition of the government’s requested sanctions but, as I read it, silently accepts the factual basis of the government’s motion. Udoibok’s memorandum does not dispute a single fact on which the government’s motion is based. I have embedded the government’s motion via Scribd below. You may want to read the whole thing. It is intensely interesting.
The government seeks to punish and mitigate the harm Bock has done by her violation of the court’s protective order. In part it wishes to seize one of her sons’ computers on which the protected documents have been downloaded and disseminated in violation of the court’s protective order.
The Star Tribune is a protagonist in this drama. It is a drama that would be of concern to Minnesotans disturbed by the crime wave of which the Feeding Our Future case has proved to be the leading edge. The complex of cases in which Feeding Our Future is now only a part has become a huge national story. As of this morning, however, the Star Tribune has maintained radio silence. It has not whispered a word about the motion or its role in this episode of the Feeding Our Future story to its readers.
The government’s motion states: “The government…respectfully requests that the Court modify its November 15, 2022, Protective Order to enjoin Bock, her sons, or any other third parties acting on her behalf, other than her criminal defense attorney, from possessing or having access to any of the protected materials, outside of the presence of her criminal defense attorney.” By limiting the remedy to “third parties acting on her behalf,” the government excludes the Star Tribune from the ambit of the modified order it seeks.
Udoibok misses one argument he might have made in opposition to the motion. To the extent that the documents in issue remain in the possession of the Star Tribune, the remedies sought by the government are futile. We remain subject to the tender mercies of the reporters and editors of an irresponsible institution. The reporter left unnamed in the government’s motion has already done damage with his call(s) to defense counsel representing one or more cooperating witnesses.
What we have here is something of a local variation on the “Pentagon Papers” case. What is to be done? Insofar as the Star Tribune is concerned, absolutely nothing but call it out.
