Court filing — United States v. Bock et al. (Feeding Our Future) (Dkt. 414, D. Minn.)

Summary

Government's Motion in Limine to Preclude Argument or Inquiry to the Government's Investigation, filed January 10, 2025 as Doc. 414 in United States of America v. Aimee Marie Bock et al., Criminal No. 22-223 (NEB/DTS), U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. The United States asks the Court to preclude improper references to its investigation, including questioning or seeking to admit evidence of investigative steps not taken, citing Fed. R. Evid. 401 and 403. It relies on United States v. Zaccaria, 240 F.3d 75 (1st Cir. 2001), in which a court upheld the exclusion of questions about why polygraph tests were not administered. The signature block names Andrew M. Luger, United States Attorney, with /s/ Joseph H. Thompson.

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“Court filing — United States v. Bock et al. (Feeding Our Future) (Dkt. 414, D. Minn.).” Original at archive.org. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/court-filing-united-states-v-bock-et-al-feeding-our-future-dkt-414-d-m-aee90649d1/, SHA-256 daa05c03c828bfef0cf9538803c420d27188d282f6e3d5b80c1916f3ee363d84.

Full text

CASE 0:22-cr-00223-NEB-DTS Doc. 414 Filed 01/10/25 Page 1 of 4

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
Criminal No. 22-223 (NEB/DTS)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff,

v. GOVERNMENT’S MOTION IN LIMINE
TO PRECLUDE ARGUMENT OR
1. AIMEE MARIE BOCK, INQUIRY TO THE GOVERNMENT’S
3. SALIM SAID, INVESTIGATION
4. ABDULKADIR NUR SALAH,
and
6. ABDI NUR SALAH,

Defendants.

The United States of America, by and through its attorneys, Andrew M. Luger,

United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, Joseph H. Thompson, Harry M.

Jacobs, Matthew S. Ebert, and Daniel W. Bobier, Assistant United States Attorneys,

respectfully submits the following motion in limine to preclude improper references

to the government’s investigation, including questioning or seeking to admit evidence

of investigative steps not taken by the government.

Evidence that is irrelevant under Fed. R. Evid. 401, or that would confuse the

issues and mislead the jury under Fed. R. Evid. 403, should be excluded. However,

at trial the government anticipates that the defendants may seek to divert the jurors’

attention from whether the defendants committed the charged crimes to irrelevant

argument and inquiry about the government’s investigation into the scheme to

defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program. They should not be permitted to do so.
CASE 0:22-cr-00223-NEB-DTS Doc. 414 Filed 01/10/25 Page 2 of 4

The “quality or bias of a criminal investigation occasionally may affect the

reliability of particular evidence in a trial,” but this is only true if the defendant can

establish a connection between an omission and that evidence. United States v.

McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166, 1192 (10th Cir. 1998); id. (“There was no trial evidence

whose reliability would have been undercut.… To have allowed McVeigh to put the

government on trial because there might have been something more the government

perhaps could have done…would inevitably divert the jury’s attention from the issues

of the trial.”). Without making a specific and direct link between an investigative

omission and a piece of relevant evidence, a defendant risks injecting the trial with

the detrimental consequences that Rule 403 is designed to prevent. Fed. R. Evid. 403

(“unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting

time”).

In United States v. Zaccaria, 240 F.3d 75 (1st Cir. 2001), for example, the

defendant sought to question the case agent about why he did not administer a

particular investigative tool, namely, polygraph tests, to certain witnesses. Id. at 80.

The district court precluded that line of inquiry, finding it “wholly irrelevant,

potentially confusing, and unfairly prejudicial.” Id. The appellate court upheld the

district court’s evidentiary ruling, explaining:

[T]he fact that polygraph tests ultimately were not administered could
be attributable to any number of reasons (e.g., administrative oversight,
lack of time, lack of resources, the personal proclivities of a specific
agent, knowledge that the test results would be inadmissible at trial,
and so on and so forth). Many (perhaps most) of these possible reasons
have no bearing either on the government’s bona fides or on the issues
in this case. In the absence of a particularized showing that the
government was not turning square corners, the district court acted well

2
CASE 0:22-cr-00223-NEB-DTS Doc. 414 Filed 01/10/25 Page 3 of 4

within its discretion in refusing to let defense counsel embark on a
fishing expedition.

Id. at 81 (emphasis added). The court further recognized the potential prejudicial

inference that could be drawn by the jury because of the defendant’s proposed line of

inquiry: “Testimony about the government’s non-administration of polygraph

examinations would be apt to spark an unwarranted—and profoundly prejudicial—

inference that the Secret Service agents believed the test results would be harmful to

their cause.” Id.

Other courts have similarly refused to permit irrelevant speculation about

investigation steps or techniques not taken by the government, which have no

probative value in determining a defendant’s guilt. See United States v. Veal, 23 F.3d

985, 989 (6th Cir. 1994) (no abuse of discretion in the district court ruling, based on

relevance grounds, that “the jury would not be called upon to determine whether the

government’s investigation had been good or bad”); see also see also United States v.

Saldarriaga, 204 F.3d 50, 52–53 (2d Cir. 2000) (“The [district court] properly charged

the jury to base its decision on the evidence or lack of evidence that had been

presented at trial, and to focus solely on whether, in light of that evidence or lack of

evidence, the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was

guilty of the crimes with which he was charged. The jury correctly was instructed

that the government has no duty to employ in the course of a single investigation all

of the many weapons at its disposal, and that the failure to utilize some particular

technique or techniques does not tend to show that a defendant is not guilty of the

crime with which he has been charged.”).

3
CASE 0:22-cr-00223-NEB-DTS Doc. 414 Filed 01/10/25 Page 4 of 4

In this case, or any other case for that matter, there are any number of reasons

why an agent may or may not have taken a particular course of action, whether it be

not administering a polygraph (as in Zaccaria), not interviewing a particular person,

or not pursuing some other line of investigation. The defendants should not be

permitted to take a detour from the trial to the investigation without demonstrating

how such a line of attack is relevant and not misleading, confusing, or unduly

prejudicial.

Accordingly, the defendants should be precluded at trial from making improper

allegations, inquiry, or arguments before the jury about the government’s

investigation, including irrelevant or prejudicial questioning of investigative steps

not taken by the government.

Dated: January 10, 2025 Respectfully Submitted,

ANDREW M. LUGER
United States Attorney

/s/ Joseph H. Thompson

BY: JOSEPH H. THOMPSON
HARRY M. JACOBS
MATTHEW S. EBERT
DANIEL W. BOBIER
Assistant United States Attorneys

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