The single mother is prosecuting – looting – Kentucky for kicking her stamps because she bought food in the store where she worked

The state claimed that it carried out multiple goods on the same day, and tried to overcome its account several times, and entered some unconfirmed pins and sometimes the purchases of the “full dollar” that were unlikely during the typical groceries were performed.

The woman from Salirville in Apalashian Kentucky was an explanation: she worked in the store. She was buying lunch sometimes and then getting grocery stores after work. Her baby was also using her card sometimes.

It was directed by an administrative hearing officer Supplementary Nutrition Help (SNAP) Regardless, based on the alleged alleged shopping pattern. She filed a lawsuit – and won.

“It is Draconian to take away pop “The benefits of a single mother without clear and convincing evidence that the deliberate trafficking was taking place during a period that was very prevalent in food.”

A breakthrough of lack of eligibility

Over the past five years, Cabinet in Kentucky for health and family It has brought hundreds of fraud cases that rely heavily on transactions data in order to cancel the food benefits of people.

Judges, lawyers, and legal experts in the interviews and in court documents said that such evidence does not prove little. Radio Kentucky General reviewed dozens of administrative session decisions and court documents from the past five years on which the Council of Ministers relied on shopping patterns to prove that the person was “smuggled”, or sold, its benefits.

Kentucky is very aggressive in excluding people from the sudden benefits that the state occupies second in the nation in order not to the administrative values ​​of the individual, behind Florida, according to the latest federal data from 2023.

In the past decade, the insecurity in Kentucky increased from less than 100 in 2015 to more than 1,800 in 2023. More than 300 others have been accused of selling or abusing its advantages since January 2024, according to the records obtained by Radio Kentucky.

In 2023, the Franklin Provincial Judge ordered the Cabinet to stop not only qualify individuals based on transactions data, but since the decision, at least three cases claim that the health agency continues to submit such cases.

“The transaction data on its own cannot be proven to be aimed at fraud or showing the actual result of any individual treatment,” said Curie Duds, a professor of law at the University of Kentucky.

In the face of the punishment, the recipients are pressed to waive their sessions

Kentuckians receives a notice of their alleged suspicious activity through the messages sent by mail, as they are required to cultivate their right to the hearing and accept the punishment automatically. In the first crime, this is generally the sudden ban for one year. They are also required to pay the full amount that the country says is misused.

Often, these cases involve a relatively small amount of money. Records indicate that more than 900 people have been launched due to “trafficking” or abuse of less than $ 1,000 since 2022. The lowest amount was allegedly 14 cents.

The state has severely bowed on administrative hearing exemptions since 2015, and by 2023, nearly a quarter of all the non -execution operations were through waiver. Some lawsuits claim that individuals did not completely understand the consequences of concessions and were encouraged to sign by officials.

Radio Kentucky has reviewed more than twenty cases since 2020, when the Council of Ministers accused an individual of trafficking using only spending patterns, despite the participants’ refusal or lack of response – without evidence or other interviews, according to administrative listening decisions.

Kindra Steel, spokesman The Council of Ministers for Health and FamilyShe refused to make an interview date with cabinet officials after multiple requests. Steel said in an email message that “we have never” had brought trafficking cases based on transaction data only and admitted that it will not be enough to prove the intention.

In response to a different question, Steel wrote the investigation of fraud allegations consisting of considering income, living situations “and spending patterns that indicate trafficking.” It did not refer to how any of these factors are used to demonstrate the misuse or sale of deliberate Snap benefits, or how it differs from relying on transactions data – which is by nature a pattern of spending. Still said in another email message that they also meet the sellers and beneficiaries.

“Our colleagues in Kentukian are the ones who feel hungry.”

Nearly 4 out of 25 Cantocyan suffers from food insecurity, similar to the national average is about 14 %, according to the analysis of the Associated Press of the American Census Office and Nutrition of America.

The US Department of Agriculture will He stopped collecting statistics and issuing food insecurity After October, saying on September 20 that the numbers became “excessive politicization.” The decision comes in the wake of Federal financing discounts for food safety and nutrition network programs At the level of the country.

In the past fiscal year, 1 out of 8 of the Snap, which was previously called Food Stamps. The lack of food security in the rural areas of Kentucky is more difficult, and legal representation is difficult to reach.

“People who benefit from these programs are some people who need more help in this country,” Dodz said. ))

The Council of Ministers denied the KPR request for the case’s observations on individual fraud charges that begin in early 2024, which will include the evidence used in accusations. However, the decisions of the administrative session reviewed by KPR from 2020 to 2023 included the evidence on which the Council of Ministers relied on; Hearing officers will say repeatedly that the person has traveled at his advantages based on the shopping patterns that the state considered suspicious.

The expert says that officials in purchasing purchase data

National legal experts who specialize in Snap Access says that excessive dependence on transactions data is not unique for Lantaki. David Super, a law professor at Georgetown, said that the transaction data was initially as a tool for determining possible fraud cases – and not as a way to prove this.

He studied excluding the surprise for decades, and saw many cases that he believes that transactions data are offended as a direct evidence of violations, instead of asking the state to build cases with witnesses, certificates, video evidence and guilt.

In the state’s administrative hearing decision in 2023, one of the hearing officers decided that a woman in the city of Maki in the eastern state of Kentucky had directed its benefits because she conducted eight consecutive transactions in one year. The decision also said that she mocked her balance several times, made some insufficient attempts to the boxes and entered her pin number incorrectly several times.

It has lost its sudden benefits for a year. In resumption, the woman told the state with two children and recently discovered that she is pregnant.

“Everyone forgets to get something and must return to the store and get it,” she wrote, as she was defending her purchases back.

I received another hearing, but the result did not change.

Cabinet officials, who confessed to crosses during the case of 2023, admitted that successive transactions and purchases in the dollar are not prohibited under SNAP bases, and the beneficiaries are not informed that the cabinet considers them suspicious.

But all of these things are used as a guide – sometimes the only evidence – that a person misused his benefits.

Christie Joff, a Al -Raid’s lawyer for legal assistance in Pressonsberg in southeast Kentucky, used to see many of these cases, although she declined last year.

“There were very few cases in the cases that I dealt with, as the customer was unable to give me a completely reasonable explanation for these transactions, and none of them was smuggling,” said Jouf. “There are no receipts, there are no video clips to show that someone is committing anything wrong. It is just a written number on a sheet.”

While saying the date of purchase is not enough to prove the trafficking, Kentucky’s judges did not stop requesting that the state would change how it training employees or is conducting its sudden investigations.

Government training materials are almost completely focused on purchase patterns

In response to the request of open records, the CPR has submitted with documents used to train investigators on the violations of the deliberate program. It appears to discuss almost exclusively transactions data, including an investigation into successive payments, large transactions and purchases in the dollar completely.

In 2020, Michigan’s appeal judges decided that transactions data alone is never enough to prove that the company – or the person – used in fraud.

Dodds believes this is the standard for all countries, including Kentucky.

It is in the early stages of reviewing thousands of decisions of the benefits trafficking session systematically between 2020 and 2023. data of about 700 decisions in 2020 alone show that many Kentokin had been rejected from the benefits before the state provides what it considers a real evidence of guilt.

“There may be a few cases that I would like to say that there is real evidence that they have committed something wrong,” Dodz said. “There was one in which a woman was on the phone with a hearing officer while she was trying to sell her advantages … but cases that contain data are not very fire.”

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The Associated Press Press Castore Bennjaddi’s journalist contributed to this report.

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This report is part of a series called sowing flexibility, cooperation Between the Institute of Non -profit news ” Rural news network The Associated Press focused on how rural communities throughout the United States moved into food insecurity. Nine non -profit news rooms participated in the series: Lighthouseand Capital band Latino Nc Linkand Investigation in the Middle Westand Geofferson Province Lighthouseand hairand General media for Louisvilleand Min screen and minnpost. The rural news network is funded Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, among other things.

The Ministry of Health and Science at Associated Press receives support from the Science Education Department at the Howard Hughes Institute for the Medical Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP is the only responsible for all content.