Store Owner Gets Jailtime for Snapping Up $3.6 Million in SNAP Benefits

WORCESTER, MA—A Worcester woman will serve a year and a day in prison for a $3.6 million food stamp fraud scheme that she operated out of her Worcester convenience store.

Vida Ofori Causey, 46, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman to one year and one day in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $3,512,906 to the government. Restitution will be determined after the forfeiture is completed.

Causey pleaded guilty in December of 2015 to one count of conspiracy to commit SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) benefits fraud, one count of SNAP fraud, and one count of money laundering.

SNAP, which was formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides eligible households with government subsidies for certain foodstuffs, and allows holders to exchange their SNAP benefits for food at authorized retail food stores.

Causey was the owner and operator of J&W Aseda Plaza, a convenience store on Main Street in Worcester.

From April 2010 to Oct. 2014, Causey conspired with others to commit SNAP fraud by buying SNAP benefits from recipients rather than exchanging them for food. Causey bought the benefits at a discounted value of approximately fifty cents for every SNAP dollar, said the U.S. Attorney's Office-District of Massachusetts. By so doing, Causey caused the USDA to electronically deposit into a bank account she controlled the full face value of the SNAP benefits fraudulently obtained. To come up with the cash for the SNAP benefits, Causey used the cash she received from customers who had paid for MoneyGrams. In order to cover those transactions, she transferred money from the account where her SNAP funds were electronically deposited into the account she used for her MoneyGram business.

During the course of the four-year conspiracy, Causey defrauded the USDA of approximately $3,638,900 in SNAP funds.