Posted on 12/24/2013 11:45:41 AM PST by raccoonradio
SALEM (MA)— The owner of two small convenience stores in Salem and Lynn will be sentenced next month to two years in jail by a judge who said yesterday that Peter Jhonny Limat’s breach of the public trust warrants time behind bars.
“The money that pays for food stamps doesn’t come out of thin air,” said Salem Superior Court Judge Howard Whitehead. “It comes out of the pockets of working people, and it goes to people who supposedly cannot afford the necessities of life.”
But many of the customers at Limat’s two stores — Boston Street Market in Salem and J&M Mini Mart in Lynn — weren’t using their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or “SNAP,” cards to buy food, Limat admitted earlier this month. Instead, prosecutors said, Limat, 38, of Lynn, would let people use the cards like they were using an ATM and then take half the money for himself. A customer who wanted $50, for example, would let Limat charge $100 to the card, which he would report as food sales. Each of them would get $50 in cash. The Department of Agriculture would then reimburse Limat for the full amount, sending the money directly to his bank account.
In fact, many of the cardholders simply left their cards with Limat, coming by to collect cash when they knew their benefit would be refreshed each month, a prosecutor said.
Over the course of a year, Limat conducted some $800,000 in food stamp transactions, prosecutor Phil Mallard told the judge earlier this month. More than half those transactions — a half-million dollars worth — were for purported food sales of more than $100, something Mallard argued was practically impossible given the limited inventory of both stores.
Mallard and the judge conceded it’s probably impossible to determine how many of those transactions were fraudulent, aside from the $2,100 collected by an undercover agent during an investigation. But Limat was earning enough to generate an income tax bill of $83,000 in 2011, according to a tax return his attorney, Geoffrey Nathan, submitted during yesterday’s sentencing hearing.
Whitehead said the size of that tax bill suggests that Limat, at least in 2011, was earning close to a quarter of a million dollars after deductions for business expenses like rent and payroll.
Last month, Limat’s pastor testified that Limat had been “tithing” $25,000 a year for the past decade.
But Nathan, a privately hired Boston defense attorney, argued that his client and his family are now struggling to get by.
The 2005 BMW that Limat bought needed a new transmission, and every cent Limat earns as a Haitian interpreter now goes to the state Department of Revenue to satisfy a state cigarette tax arrears, Nathan said.
Both Nathan and Limat yesterday placed the blame on customers looking for cash.
“This ‘scam,’ according to a New York Times article, is a fraud committed by the person walking into the store,” Nathan said.
Limat echoed that later in the hearing, telling the judge, “You are not the boss of them, you go by them.” He said his customers claimed they had no time to go to the ATM.
The judge agreed that customers who sought cash in order to purchase banned items like cigarettes, alcohol or even tattoos with their public benefits were partly to blame. But he said Limat facilitated those efforts.
“Why shouldn’t the facilitator of that not be punished?” the judge asked.
Nathan pleaded with the judge for no jail time, telling him that Limat’s family, including an autistic son, would be devastated, his children “forced” into foster care or to live with grandparents in New York because Limat’s wife works full time.
“There is an innocence that would be lost were Mr. Limat to be incarcerated,” Nathan insisted.
But the judge suggested that Limat profited from the crime and needed to pay a price.
“There has to be a deterrent,” Whitehead said. “I do think a sentence of incarceration has to be imposed.” He told Limat he would have to serve two years in jail.
Mallard had asked for three to five years in state prison. The maximum penalty for the crime of electronic benefits fraud is 10 years in prison.
Whitehead agreed to delay sentencing until Jan. 13, on the condition that Limat wear a GPS monitoring bracelet and not leave the state.
He also warned Limat that if he does not show up, the two-year sentence is off the table and he could face up to the maximum prison sentence.
Howie Carr list ping
Drop. Bucket.
Not too much. The scammers were the customers that used the cash for cigs and booze. Oh yeah, this guy was a bum and he got a little of what he deserved, but the real crooks got off scot free, and they are soon to be found in another Speedy Mart doing the same thing.
Many other stores are larger and/or doing this on a smaller scale so their fraud is virtually undetectable. And it's not like the moonbats who run Massachusetts are going to be looking too hard to find more instances of fraud.
This is but the tip of a massive iceberg of food stamp fraud.
FALSIFYING GOVT DOCUMENTS IS A FELONY immigrant scams include selling EBT cards on Craigslist, fraudulent stores that sell no groceries---just EBT transactions---one illegal alien storeowner allegedly stole $400,000. The feds estimate illegal scams account for one in 20 “food stamp” transactions.
Other reported scams include:
<><> Welfare payments to recipients long after they were listed as dead.....
<><> Multiple recipients using one SS no – and multiple Social Security numbers being used by one person. .....
<><> EBT cards from Massachusetts being used in places like Hawaii, Las Vegas, and the Virgin Islands......
<><> Tens of thousands of blank EBT cards missing from state welfare offices......
<><> Repeated requests for so-called "lost" benefit cards to be replaced.
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THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC is a Caribbean nation notorious for corrupt governments. US politicians' frequent the DR "amenities" at its posh resorts; rock stars and celebrities relax at luxe villas spending big bucks there.
NOTE Recent travel brochures report that the DR has no safety net or state-sponsored job creation for its largely impoverished citizenry.
THIRD WORLD MONEY LAUNDERING IN AMERICA The one million Dominican citizens currently living illegally in the US send home about a billion US dollars annually---which is considered by the corrupt do-nothing DR govt to be a major source of state revenue. A steady exodus leaves for US shores lured by the endless US gravy train. Money laundering is rampant in the form of Dominican here on food stamps/welfare. etc, laundering EBT cards through corrupt grocers--- where cash is handed out from EBT cards, then sent to the DR.
THE MODUS OPERANDI (1) using multiple identities, and, (2) falsifying official Govt documents. The scam up- close---getting food stamps (which they apparently do not need), using EBT cards for food, and shipping EBT food to the Third World where the food is sold for profit.
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NY POST EXCLUSIVE REPORT New York food stamp recipients ship welfare-funded groceries to Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti....and so on. Tax-subsidized food stamps are paying to buy and ship food to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic....where the food is sold for profit.
A spokeswoman for the US Dept of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said the $86 BILLION welfare program is reserved for poor US households that buy and prepare food. "States should intervene if people are caught shipping non- perishables abroad", she said.
A senior fellow at the Cato Institute called it another example of welfare abuse. “The purpose of this program is to help Americans who don’t have enough to eat. This is not intended as a form of foreign aid.” As an example, US taxpayers spent $522.7 million on foreign aid to the Caribbean last fiscal year, govt data show.
HERE'S HOW The "needy connivers" buy barrels available in supermarkets in latino enclaves---then ship them filled with $500 to $2,000 worth of EBT-paid groceries to Third World---where the groceries are sold for cash.
Pioneer Supermarket, Brooklyn, flagrantly sells blue plastic barrels for $40 each used to ship food bought 2/ EBT cards to the Caribbean.
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PEW REPORT The US is the most important source of remittances to Latin America, accounting for 3/4's of last year's $52.9 billion total. -- wire transfers of US tax dollars accounted for the highest percentage of GDP in El Salvador (16.5%), Honduras (15.7%) and Guatemala 10%).-- The US is No. 1 nation from which illegals' wire transfers originate, sending $123.3 billion abroad in 2012.
Manifestly, they do not need the money they've been awarded by the state for common necessaries. So why do they continue to receive it?
That's like dieting and getting a smaller cherry on top of your triple dip sundae. The real fraud is in letting lazy ass deadbeats have the cards in the first place. Small time crooks like this jerks should be punished, but aren't the real problem.
He was getting 50% of this money, around $400,000 a year for several years. None of the food stamp recipients who committed fraud were prosecuted.
This is one small prosecution. The problem is endemic. While this is a small step in the right direction, it means almost nothing given the level of fraud.
True a small victory but in MA these are very rare.
Great point. And if these leeches lost their benefits for a minimum of say 5 years, this crap would be greatly reduced. But politicians don’t want that. They want to use our money to buy votes. Let’s stick them in prison too. I am sick of doing with less to pay for freeloaders.
Not until they prosecute the hundreds of welfare cheats who patronized his store and committed criminal conspiracy by telling their friends and families about the easy money.
No surprise here. No surprise at all. We already know many of these people are grifters and thieves to begin with.
Where are the indictments and prosecutions on "many of the customers"? They all deserve their punishments as well.
If "breach of public trust" was actually a criminal offense Barry would get 5 consecutive life terms.
The problem is endemic.
Just wondering. . .Instead of SNAP money, what would happen if our benevolent Gummamint would set up a bunch of “Feeding Stations”? Give food to everyone who wanted it.
One caveat (a means test sort of): If a person is greater than 30% body fat, must attend a nutrition/dieting class to continue recieving free food.
They already do that, called food banks.
Populated mostly with non citizens, many that don't speak English and many over weight also.
There is also a clinic, brand new...must have cost millions it's giant...and most of the clients are I am sure not citizens of the USA.
They have a lot of the new state of the art equipment.
Most, if not all, of the employees speak Spanish. Most signs are in Spanish, some in English.
Much more Spanish spoken there than English.
If the clinic wasn't so lavish, you would think you were in Mexico.
I realize that and agree with what you said. The true thrust of my question was the complete dismantalization of the “Food Stamp” program. It’s stated purpose is to provide nutrition to people in need. The article is pointing to a huge nation wide problem. That problem is that many (not all) SNAP recipients trade thier benefits for (actual) money to purchase other goods (many times for drugs, alcohol, etc.). If people are “Going hungry”, then feed them, don’t give them a “benefit” which is so often and easily misused and abused.
The IRS will be after him, unless ... he gave of amounts to the Dems.
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