Food Stamps

LINCOLN PARK, Mich. - A Michigan lottery winner was charged with fraud Tuesday for collecting food stamps and public health insurance despite having pocketed a $735,000 jackpot. Amanda Clayton, 25, was silent during a brief court hearing after spending a night in jail. A not-guilty plea was entered, and her lawyer vowed to fight the charges. Clayton is the second person in Michigan caught with food stamps despite newly minted wealth. Gov. Rick Snyder last week signed a law requiring the lottery to notify the Human Services Department when someone wins at least $1,000.

WASHINGTON - Farmers markets are a popular source of reasonably priced fresh produce, but across the country many accept only cash or checks - a big problem for low-income shoppers using food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to change that. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan this week announced a $4 million grant for states to help implement wireless technology that will allow more farmers markets to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps.

Under a judge's orders, attorneys for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia and the state Department of Public Welfare are to seek ways to speed food stamps to applicants who have no income. In an opinion late Friday, U.S. District Judge John Fullam criticized the department's "dereliction of duty" for delaying emergency food stamps as long as 30 days to applicants throughout the state. In addition to Philadelphia, he said the biggest violators were Elk, Forrest, Bedford, Westmoreland, Somerset, Sullivan, Bradford, Snyder, Tioga, Wyoming, Lebanon, Carbon and Allegheny Counties.

A Camden County real estate agent pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to selling a house for $30,000 worth of food stamps. Awni Alyousef, who goes by the name Jack Ayoub, admitted that on Feb. 26 he sold the two-story house at 518 Lester Terrace in South Camden to a man who turned out to be a federal undercover agent investigating the illegal exchange of food stamps. Ayoub told Judge Maryanne Trump Barry in Newark that on the same date, he sold the U.S. Department of Agriculture agent a mobile phone system for $1,000 worth of food stamps.

William Andrew, who is 80 years old and legally blind, says he has been trying to get food stamps for the past eight years. The people at the Social Security office in North Philadelphia were nice enough, he says. But nothing ever came of his efforts to get the stamps he says Social Security workers told him he was entitled to. "I think they filled out the applications," said Andrew, of Kensington. "But I never heard from them. " Yesterday, Community Legal Services Inc. of Philadelphia filed a class- action suit on behalf of Andrew and others, charging that top federal officials failed to "implement, monitor and enforce" policies enabling Social Security recipients to receive food stamps.

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare has been violating federal law for nearly two years by delaying emergency food stamps to desperately poor households in Philadelphia and many other counties, a federal judge here ruled yesterday. " . . . hunger takes no holidays," Chief U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam said, ordering state officials to make sure eligible households get food stamp coupons within five calendar days after applying for them. Fullam said DPW "has violated the Food Stamp Act by failing to allow and encourage all prospective applicants to apply for benefits on the same day that they first enter a food stamp office . . . " The judge acted on a suit filed in 1984 by attorney David A. Super of Community Legal Services, and after reviewing more than 400 examples "of the state agency's dereliction of duty.

The hot and sour looks on the faces of the owners of six Chinese restaurants had nothing to do with the soup they serve. The six admitted in court that they had bitten off more than they could chew when they were buying discount stolen food stamps earlier this year. All six pleaded guilty to illegally dealing in food stamps and receiving stolen property before Municipal Judge Louis J. Presenza. They were placed on six months' probation, fined $1,000 and ordered to make restitution.

In some rare good news for poor and working-poor Pennsylvanians, the food-stamp program is improving, with fewer bureaucratic encumbrances and slightly higher benefits. The changes were highlighted with fanfare and relief yesterday at a food-stamp forum sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. Mayor Nutter opened the proceedings, saying, "All Philadelphians deserve access to affordable healthy food. The thought that some people don't have [such] access may strike some people in the city as unusual.

NEWARK, N.J. - Mayor Cory Booker and a Twitter follower plan to try to live on food stamps for at least a week, the mayor has announced. The idea stemmed from a back-and-forth conversation between Booker and a woman who goes by the name TwitWit and uses the handle @MWadeNC. They began talking about the idea Sunday night while discussing the role the government should play in funding school breakfast and lunch programs. Booker said Tuesday that he intended to follow through with the plan.