Agencies are still refusing to release whether Tamerlan was collecting unemployment or Dhzokhar was receiving financial assistance for college(since they wouldn’t comment, three guesses on what the answer to that is). Apparently, Dzhokhar was also making a bit on the side peddling marijuana, according to sources.
Thank you, Representative David Linsky (who fought his fellow Democrat Governor to help get information out).
Via Daily Mail:
The deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife Katherine relied on food stamps and public assistance from 2011 to 2012, soon after they became parents.
New details have emerged about taxpayer money that was shelled out to the family of the bombing suspects, after the Mass. Gov. previously refused to divulge information on their welfare benefits.
A state lawmaker was able to obtain data about government assistance the Tsarnaevs received and that information was passed on to the media.
On Friday, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance detailed how the couple received food stamps from September 2011 to November 2012.
The couple, who married in June 2010, are believed to have become parents to their daughter, Zahara, in 2011, in the months before they began receiving the aid.
In addition to food stamps, the young family also benefited from TAFDC (Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children), a program for low income parents with dependent children.
TAFDC is paid out twice a month and can be directly deposited into a recipient’s bank account.
The assistance was paid to Katherine, since a person must be a U.S. citizen, or eligible non-citizen, to receive the aid.
While the couple took the government aid, the 24-year-old Rhode Island native would sometimes clock as many as 80 hours a week while her unemployed husband stayed at home.
Ultimately his wife’s income made the couple ineligible for welfare and they stopped receiving state money in November 2012.
Welfare officials were forced to divulge details of the aid that was paid out to the family of the bombing suspects, a turn around from their previous strategy of stonewalling.
Mass. Gov. Patrick Deval signaled to state agencies this week that they should not discuss the details of what government assistance Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had received, citing privacy concerns.
Welfare benefits paid to the Tsarnaevs
Though the welfare information is not available for release unless the person in question provides their consent – it is available to lawmakers.
Thus, Mass. State Representative David Linsky called on the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance to provide him with the information.
Linksy issued an ultimatum on Thursday to welfare officials, giving them 24 hours to provide the information.