No more welfare for booze, sex and gambling

From the Daily News:

Welfare checks could no longer go for beer, booze and babes under a bill that passed the New York state Senate on Tuesday.

The bill would bar welfare cash withdrawals at liquor stores and strip clubs, and would penalize recipients caught blowing support checks on sin and vice with the loss of benefits for a month or more.

The feds have ordered states to crack down on welfare waste, fraud and abuse by February or lose 5% of their federal public assistance funding.

NYC taxpayers are suckers

From the NY Post:

For out-of-towners seeking “four-star" accommodations here, there’s The Waldorf, The Pierre, The Plaza — and the city’s homeless shelters.

“People pay $3,000 for an apartment here, and I get to live here for free!” said Michal Jablonowski, 25, who moved back to the city from his native Poland three years ago and is now staying in a Bowery shelter.

“I have food. I have health care. It’s great," Jablonowski said. “Here, the city supports you. The city helps you with everything.’’

City shelters boasting generous resources have increasingly become havens for out-of-towners, statistics show.

Nearly one in four of the city’s single homeless people who entered the system in December 2012 listed their last address as outside the city.

“We get breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have a microwave and TV. They do the laundry for free,” noted Jablonowski, who lived in New York for years before going back to his homeland, only to return here to a freebie life.

Jablonowski said he even gets a prepaid cellphone — allowing 1,000 texts and 300 minutes a month — through Medicaid and boasted, “I’m going to get my teeth fixed.”

“I love New York because you cannot starve in New York, you can always find food and clothes,” he said.

“The shelters are really nice. You have clean sheets. You get to watch TV and stay in the warm. Homeless people have it so good, they don’t want to look for a job."

“Some people in here have it better than people working 9 to 5, because they’re not paying rent. I’ve stayed in hostels worse. I call this four stars,” said William Sullivan, who came to the city from LA for a job that fell through.

“Everyone in this place has a silver spoon in their mouth. You get fed three to four meals a day, and the food here is great.”

A Michigan woman who arrived in December said she was drawn to New York for the “adventure.”

“New York is New York! That’s why people come here,” said Amy Kaufman, 41, who is staying in a city-funded Chelsea shelter.

“I go to the library, and I go sightseeing a lot in Times Square and Chelsea. I like it here.

“I’m staying here for a while because the housing options are better. Michigan is in a recession right now.”

Even reverse snowbirds from Florida would rather suffer through a brutal New York winter than be homeless in their own state. Florida is the second-most popular last address for out-of-town homeless.

“Survival in Florida was a lot harder than here. There are a lot more resources here for homeless, especially in terms of housing and finding transitional housing,” said Steve Rios, 49, who came up from the Sunshine State.

Welfare money used to gamble

From NBC:

Tens of thousands of New York welfare dollars have been accessed from ATMs in liquor stores, strip clubs and even Atlantic City casinos, an I-team investigation has found.

The I-team sifted through records of more than 7 million ATM withdrawals in which money was obtained using an Electronic Benefits Transfer card or EBT card.

The cards have essentially replaced traditional food stamps and are supposed to be used by New York's neediest for basic necessities like groceries and diapers.

EBT cards can also be used to access designated amounts of cash via ATM.

The I-team found more than $95,000 withdrawn in Atlantic City over nearly two years, much of it in casinos like the Trump Taj Mahal, Caesar's Palace and The Borgata.

Aside from casinos, the I-team found thousands of dollars withdrawn from ATMs at addresses tied to liquor stores and strip clubs. The most popular strip club for food stamp withdrawals was a gentleman’s club call "Perfection" in Woodside, Queens where welfare recipients hit the ATM 15 times totaling more than $1,000.

Cheats and frauds

From Fox 5/AP:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is upgrading technology used to combat a swindle of the nation's $64.7 billion food stamp program that diverts as much as $330 million annually.

The goal is to decrease food stamp trafficking, where retailers trade customers lesser amounts of cash for stamps. Authorities say the stamps are then redeemed as usual by merchants at face value, netting them huge profits.

The practice is a federal criminal offense. Authorities say the crime has brought 597 convictions nationwide and recovery of $197.4 million since 2008.

From the NY Post:

As the state looks to root out Medicaid abuse, the office charged with investigating fraud in the program has shrunk to just four people.

The state Office of the Welfare Inspector General is half the size it was in 2007 and about a third its size of a decade ago.

There are just two special investigators left on staff — down from six in October 2007.

OWIG handled 217 investigations in 2007 but merely 109 last year.

From the NY Post:

The State Liquor Authority is cracking down on tax-dodging city bodegas that smuggle cases of beer in from New Jersey.

A growing number of local shop owners load up their vans and trucks with beer from Jersey discounters to save nearly $6 a case in fees and taxes.

From Metro:

The city announced yesterday that it is suing a Manhattan smoke shop that allows patrons to roll their own cigarettes, only days after a Queens man was arrested for allegedly selling thousands of counterfeit, untaxed cigarettes.

New York has filed suit against Island Smokes, a Chinatown-based shop that city officials say evades cigarette taxes by providing customers with tobacco, rolling papers and access to machinery that rolls their cigarettes for them.

“They are trying to get around the law by claiming they’re not in the business of selling cigarettes when they clearly are,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Island Smokes argues that they don’t sell manufactured cigarettes and therefore cannot be taxed.

The suit comes after the Queens district attorney office filed charges against Abdus Shahed, 31, on Friday and confiscated 5,000 cartons of cigarette from his home in Woodside, Queens. Officials also found $96,000 in cash there. Nearly 2,000 of those cartons were counterfeit, officials said.

Welfare cheats busted

From the NY Post:

Five former Brooklyn residents were charged with welfare fraud and grand larceny after falsely claiming they still lived in the borough so that they could collect city Medicaid benefits for years, authorities said yesterday.

The two couples and one woman -- who collected a total of $114,000 in Medicaid benefits -- also hid ownership of homes and other assets on applications for Medicaid, which is earmarked for poor people, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said.

They face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

One couple, Fouad Fouad, 47, and his wife Nevertity Ibrahim, 39, previously lived in a Dyker Heights apartment, Hynes' office said. But in late 2005, the couple bought a home in Milltown, NJ, for $273,000 and moved there.

Despite that, after receiving a recertification form from the city Human Resources Administration that had been mailed to their old address, the couple claimed they still lived in Brooklyn, and that their only income was the $300 per week Fouad said he earned as a taxi driver, the DA said.

In reality, the couple also had income from two rental properties they owned in South Amboy, NJ, the DA said.

Prosecutors said the couple would travel to a Staten Island hospital for treatments that included a broken rib by Fouad, and a high fever by their child. Between early 2006 and late 2010, the couple claimed $71,704 in Medicaid benefits to which they were not entitled, an indictment charges.

The other married couple, Tau Sing Chow, 47, and Yue Hao Zhou, 37, allegedly collected $26,449 in Medicaid benefits for themselves and their two kids from 2006 until 2010 by falsely claiming they still lived in Bensonhurst after moving into a $120,000 home in Philadelphia in 2006, authorities said. Chow had also applied for welfare benefits in Philadelphia but was turned down because of his $30,000 in income as a supermarket chef, prosecutors said.

Counterfeiters ran welfare scam

200G scam hit welfare
By TIM PERONE, NY Post

Eleven Queens residents scammed the city out of almost $200,000 in welfare benefits -- while running a million-dollar counterfeit designer handbag ring, cops said.

The fraudsters had been collecting assistance for at least two years while driving Lexuses and BMWs and living in homes in Bayside and Flushing that are priced around a million dollars, authorities said.

When members of the NYPD's Organized Crime Investigation Division raided six residences yesterday they also discovered over 13,000 bogus Louis Vuitton, Burberry and other high end handbags that the suspects were planning to hawk on Canal Street in Chinatown, Lt. Enrique Santos said.

Authorities believe they could have been sold for $1 million to gullible bargain hunters.

The scams were apparently family affairs -- many of the suspects are related, cops said.

Amen, brother!

Dear Editor (Queens Chronicle):

I have read several accounts of both illegal and legal aliens abusing the system by applying for and receiving the government’s benefits (blue) card which allows them to receive free food. Some stated that the people using the cards were only speaking Spanish, were in their 20s or 30s and young enough to be working and paying for their own food. One said the people using the benefits cards were not always the people whose pictures were on the cards. Others claimed other examples of misrepresentation.

I never believed this to be the case and was offended by such letters. However, recently I have noticed the same things.

One young person left the supermarket with her $200 worth of groceries, which she received for free, and got into a 2009 SUV. Another finished with her purchase of $165 worth of food, for which she paid zero, and then passed the card to the man who was standing behind her which he used to get his groceries ($126) for free. The cashier never questioned him even though it was not his photo on front of the card. Disgraceful. Where is the justice here?

I am deeply saddened that I am paying taxes and my taxes are also going to support these people who are abusing the system. They do nothing to contribute to society, but continue to take all the free benefits they can get, which is causing all of us who are legal to pay for these benefits with our tax dollars, which continuously rise each year. I am quite sure that none of those who are illegal aliens are paying taxes, etc. and are not contributing to the U.S. economy.

Something needs to be done about these people milking this society dry. The U.S. government needs to overhaul this benefits program and give the free benefits, formerly call food stamps, to U.S. citizens and senior citizens who legally deserve them.

I came to the U.S. 15 years ago; became a citizen and am proud to call the U.S. my country now. But if you walk on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, you hardly, if ever, see a U.S. flag. All you see are flags of Mexico, Columbia, etc. It is indeed a shame what is happening here. Everyone should contact their congressman and senators and demand that they do something about this free benefits program and the abuse that is going on and increasing day by day. No wonder so many people are trying to sneak into the U.S. illegally.

Hector Hernandez
Jackson Heights

Queens cop accused in housing fraud

From The Real Deal, August 19, 2009

A Queens police officer was charged with filing bogus pay stubs with the city's Housing Preservation and Development in an effort to continue receiving a housing subsidy valued at about $7,600, authorities said.

Simone Smith, stationed in the 108th precinct in Long Island City, was arrested today and faces multiple charges including welfare fraud, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument and attempted grand larceny, the office of the Manhattan District Attorney said.

Smith, 31, a Queens resident, gave doctored pay stubs and W-2 forms to HPD in Manhattan to keep receiving the housing assistance which she was no longer eligible for after earning a higher salary on the police force, prosecutors said. She was placed on modified leave in May.

The most severe charges each carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.