| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Man pleads guilty to food stamp fraud to finance Palestinian Islamic Jihad |
| 2006-06-18 |
| Hatem Fariz, 33, charged in Florida with having ties to a terrorist organization pleaded guilty Friday to processing more than $1.4 million in phony food stamp transactions at a grocery store he once owned. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count and a fine of up to twice the value of the transactions when he is sentenced Aug. 18. Prosecutors say Fariz and his employees defrauded the federal food stamp program by trading cash for food stamp benefits credited to the store he owned in Chicago. The transactions would be rung up with specialized debit cards used by food stamp recipients to buy groceries, but the cardholders instead received cash payments for lesser amounts, according to the plea agreement. Fariz also acknowledged processing transactions for other businesses not authorized to take food stamps. Fariz, who now lives in Spring Hill, Fla., is also charged in an unrelated federal case there in which prosecutors allege he supported and raised money for a terrorist group. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #5 This reminds me of the Edward Everett Hale story, "The Man Without a Country." Rather than waste $1 on putting this putz in prison, ship him to Gaza with the proviso that he NEVER be allowed back in the US. |
| Posted by: RWV 2006-06-18 22:09 |
| #4 Food stamps are one of the most aggravating aspects of welfare. For every family that desperately need food to survive; there is another who spends an entire month's worth of stamps for a week of meat--then go hungry for the rest of the month; and another that trades their stamps so that they can get junk food, soda, cigarettes and liquor; and another that only eats rice and beans no matter what they could eat, so they trade their extra stamps to buy frivolous crap, the only furniture in their home being a satellite wide-screen TV. And of course there are corrupt grocers and black marketeers, and government bureaucrats that seem to really *hate* the poor, who make it their job to torment people who *can't* get on workfare because of disability. And politicians who don't distinguish between groceries and cash payments. Cut one?, why not cut them both? Nothing motivates like children starving to death. As I said, aggravating, all the way around. And in a country so bloated with excess food that thousands of tons of it rot every year. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-06-18 19:21 |
| #3 He'll be getting a lot of free food from the govern ment soon. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-06-18 17:57 |
| #2 Of in other terms: the Paklestinians have been stealing the dollars marked to feed the poor. Equally lovely. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-06-18 17:37 |
| #1 My tax dollars marked to feed the poor are going to jihad and cash for alcohol and drugs instead. Lovely. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2006-06-18 17:23 |