Posted on 09/30/2015 10:05:08 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Convenience store owner Vida Ofori Causey out of Worcester, Mass. was charged in federal court Monday after pleading guilty to $3.6 million worth of food stamp fraud.
According to authorities, Causey abused the program between 2010 and 2014. Food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is run by local and federal agencies. It is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was able to scam the program by buying food stamp benefits from receipts for half the actual value.
“Causey purchased the benefits at a discounted value of approximately fifty cents for every SNAP dollar,” a press release from Department of Justice stated. “By so doing, Causey caused the USDA to electronically deposit into a bank account controlled by her the full face value of the SNAP benefits fraudulently obtained.”
As a result, recipients had cash on hand to buy restricted items. The restricted items could include alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs. The program is supposed to be used to provide food to low-come individuals and families. In total, Causey defrauded the USDA for approximately $3,638,900.
SNAP is the nation’s largest food-assistance program. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the program has increased from 17 million participants in 2000 to nearly 47 million in 2014.
The improved economy has helped decrease the number of participants in recent years. The Congressional Budget Office found, since participation hit its peak in December 2012, the number of people receiving benefits has declined by more than 1.5 million.
Nevertheless, the size alone has prompted concern among many lawmakers. In response, there have been many different proposals on the federal and local level to help prevent abuse.
Social justice.
So our tax dollars are going to drug cartels.
Tip of the iceberg.
Even a 10% cut in benefits would save millions for the taxpayer. For the individual recipient, it would be $90 instead of $100.
IOW, 3 or 4 fewer bags of potato chips.
What this woman did is commonplace, and it’s hard to catch.
The money laundering was what tripped her up.
So is there any information on whether or not she’s a citizen? Green Card holder? illegal alien? If she’s one of the last two, my bet is that they will simply deport her along with the $3,6 million. Sorta like a Black version of Br’er Rabbit where the “briar patch” is Ghana!
And these are only the ones dumb enough to get caught.
Exactly.
I’m sorry, but we are going to have to start hanging thieves.
There are too many of them, and they are not afraid of prison.
She will put the store in a relatives name and it will be fraud business as usual in a week. Then four years from now it may be discovered again. Paging Al Sharpton who has avoided tax crimes by shutting down, renaming, and reopening.
There should be MANDATORY JAIL TIME for government fraud (minimum 10 years) AND immediate deportation (afterwards) if it is an immigrant
What will that do to Obama, Jarrett, Holder, etc?
I see where federal funds were misused, but I don’t see where the government was out 3 million dollars.
Precisely, nor is it in any way a novel event. This has been going on since these things were issued.
The other scam is one of 'shopping to order'--buying high end groceries and 'turning' them for half price.
You really didn't think those folks were grilling ribeyes every night, or that they ate that much lobster, did you?
Please explain?
I tried to figure what you meant, but all I got was a headache.
Only if you drink the cool-aid...
That’s an insensitive thing to say.
It was flavor aid.
Financial fraud crimes take longer. I think I heard once is that the trigger for investigating is the annual expenses paid to the vendor. So they have to review the previous annual reports to determine the average annual expenses paid to the vendor and then look for a trend that exceeds that which is greater than the trend they establish for various allowable fluctuations in the marketplace.
More than likely she got to greedy and started expensing more to her store than would be allowed under the trend.
I didn’t use the ‘K’ because I wasn’t sure of the brand. Really, though, that wasn’t the active ingredient that killed people, it was just the ‘spoonful of sugar’.
It was the saccharin.
That or the cyanide or the diazepam.
Our debt will sink us as a nation. And this fraud is part of the problem. Destroying our nation is treason. If we brought back public hangings on the courthouse square for treason it would go a long way to decreasing this type of behavior.
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