Tampa Man Accused Of Defrauding USDA Out Of Half Million Dollars

TAMPA, FL — U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday has sentenced Ahmad Al Saleh, 59, of Tampa, to a year in federal prison after being convicted of participating in a conspiracy to defraud the government out of food benefits for needy families.

As part of his sentence, the court ordered Al Saleh to make restitution to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for $654,502.28.

According to court documents, in 2015, Al Saleh participated in a conspiracy to make false claims to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to steal funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP is intended to supplement the food budgets of needy families, so they can purchase healthy foods.

After the USDA prohibited the prior owner of a St. Petersburg convenience store from accepting any SNAP benefit purchases after finding he was committing fraud, Al Saleh and others agreed to create false records saying Al Saleh had purchased the store and was operating it himself.

In reality, the previous store owner continued to operate and manage the store, paying Al Saleh a small fee for the use of his name as the store owner on USDA documents.

During the time that the prior owner was operating the store under Al Saleh's name, he bought SNAP benefits from customers and paid them in cash. The court determined that the SNAP losses under the supposed “ownership” of Al Saleh was at least $654,502.84.

This case was investigated by the United States Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with the assistance from the St. Petersburg Police Department.