A couple years ago, someone who stole $3.5 million from the government food stamps program was sentenced to...one year in jail.
WORCESTER – A federal judge Monday sentenced a local woman to a year in jail and ordered her to forfeit $3.5 million and pay restitution in what lawyers said was the largest food stamp fraud case in Massachusetts history.
Vida Ofori Causey, 46, owner of J&W Aseda Plaza at 753 Main St., pleaded guilty in December to charges of conspiracy to commit Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits fraud, SNAP fraud, and money laundering in a $3.6 million cash-for-benefits scheme.
The scheme involved buying food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar while charging the government the full value of the benefit. In a four-year period, Mrs. Causey rang through more than $3.6 million worth of benefits from a three-aisle convenience store in Main South.
The Worcester Telegram story is pretty emblematic of the widespread level of fraud out there in the federal food stamp program and, as the left howled, probably why the Trump administration moved to change half the benefit from food stamps to food boxes. Food boxes are quite a bit harder to offload to store owners for cash at the local convenience store.
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6 comments:
Hip hip hooray lets do it feed the poor. Not the scammers
Ok, so I was never on EBT, but I did use WIC for about 2 years. The items were extremely limited, but I was super thankful for them...especially the formula!!! If they had shipped it straight to my door I would have been amazingly pleased, saving me a trip to the store and separating the purchase from my regular items. Would it be just as easy to simply limit the EBT items allowed to those that would be shipped in the first place? Just a thought.
The problem is they will also need pots and pans and dishes and cooking lessons.
The other day, here in the Salisbury area I witnessed a person in the grocery store checkout line buy two packages of Tic-Tacs and get $125 cash back on what looked like a SNAP card! Another reason to go to food boxes!
Easier to move cigs across state lines than trying to steal food stamps.
It amazes me how petty some people can be. Your former president gives away 150 billion to a terrorist nation. No problem. Your congressman take back room deals to guarantee big business record profits, no problem. Then to bring it home to Salisbury your local wonder boy Alex azar promotes opiod adenda while working for big pharma, no problem. He promotes the poison they prescribe for depression/anxiety, no problem. Your leaders have ripped you off for trillions of dollars and you bitch over a person that's barely existing and a so called 120 dollar transaction
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