The Shelby County Sheriff's Office has partnered with Job & Family Services and the Shelby County Prosecutor's office to address the problem of welfare fraud and application falsification.
In Shelby County, seven welfare and SNAP Card recipients have been arrested for falsifying applications, three of which have been convicted. Shelby County Sheriff, John Lenhart, says the offenders are putting a new face to crime. Instead of male offenders, these offenders are Caucasian females between 25-35 years old.
Prosecutor, Tim Sell, says this is nothing new, as people have been taking advantage of the system for years. He adds that today's offenses are no different than a decade ago. The only difference he says, is the crime is now the center of attention.
Shelby County's Job & Family Services office has appointed two superiors to take calls of welfare abuse and suspicion. In the past few months, they have received an increased amount of calls. Those calls are then forwarded to the sheriff's office who investigates.
