Photograph shows a grocery receipt for steak and lobster purchased with food stamps.
TRUE
Grocery receipt. Read it carefully This receipt was found in the parking lot
of the grocery store. Menominee, Michigan.
Doesn't this give you a warm fuzzy knowing those who have to solicit
governmental assistance are able to eat well this weekend...
The card should be limited to beans, rice, milk and fresh veggies.
This image shows a February 2011 grocery receipt allegedly found in the parking lot of Angeli's County Market (in the town of Menominee, Michigan) for six lobsters and two porterhouse steaks, with six 24-packs of Mountain Dew soda thrown in for good measure, a $141.78 purchase covered entirely by food stamps.
The possibility that it might be real outraged many who felt that such food assistance
programs should be limited to the buying of staples and necessities, and that using food
stamps for such extravagances as steak and lobster was the equivalent of the
recipient's thumbing his nose at the taxpayers who fund such programs.
In the event, the receipt was genuine, and the purchaser's use of a Bridge Card to buy
lobster, steak and Mountain Dew did not violate any laws or rules. However, the
purchaser was arrested for breaking the law in allegedly turning around and selling the
foodstuffs to someone else for 50% of the original retail price:
Louis Wayne Cuff, a 33-year-old Menominee man, was arraigned in
95th District Court in Menominee for food stamp trafficking, a felony. Cuff's
arrest resulted from a monthlong joint investigation by the state Department
of Human Services' (DHS) Office of Inspector General and the Menominee
County Sheriff's Department.
Cuff, who allegedly used a Bridge Card to buy the stuff and then sold it for
50 cents on the dollar, faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
He is free on a $5,000 bond. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 15
[2011].
DHS Deputy Director Brian Rooney said that he didn't know if the Bridge Card
Cuff used belonged to him or somebody else. Asked if the person buying the
discounted goods was also subject to criminal prosecution, Rooney said
investigators were looking into that.
While some speculated that the receipt was fabricated, or doctored, Mike
Jankovich, general manager of the company that runs the store, said all
along it was authentic. The cooperation of store employees led authorities
to Cuff.
Jankovich bristled at the suggestion by some that his clerk should have
refused to allow the extravagant order on a Bridge Card. He pointed out that
his employee had no right, under food assistance rules, to nix the
transaction.
DHS spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau wrote: "While federal guidelines allow for
food assistance to be used to buy (lobster, steak and Mountain Dew), these
purchases go against the intent of the program, which is to provide help to
those who are truly needy."
