Who else is going to pay her bills and feed her children?
Via Arkansas Online:
A woman admitted Thursday to using stolen identifiers, the Zillow real estate website and routine postal services to fool three states into sending federal benefits meant for poor people straight to her Little Rock doorstep.
“Yes sir, I’m guilty,” Keashia Latriese Davis told U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. when he asked if she was sure she wanted to plead guilty to 17 counts of wire fraud instead of taking her chances with a jury trial.
When Davis is sentenced in September, she will receive credit for pleading guilty to defrauding the government out of $262,691 between April 2015 and May 2016, instead of forcing the government to try her. But she is still facing up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
“There’s a long ways between zero and 20 years,” Marshall told her, noting that regardless of whatever sentence anyone might guess she would face, based on federal sentencing guidelines, “it’s my decision.”
Davis, wearing an orange jumpsuit and standing next to her attorney, Nicole Lybrand of the federal public defender’s office, nodded that she understood.
The charges to which she pleaded guilty all involved benefits she received through the state of Utah, but she also admitted that she had received benefits by similarly submitting false information over the Internet to Louisiana, where she was born, and Texas.[…]
Morgan told the judge Thursday that Utah allows low-income residents to apply for the benefit cards in person, by mail or online, as long as the applicant includes his or her date of birth, Social Security number, Utah address and a phone number. He said the department then interviews the applicant in person or by phone before approving the benefits. When the mailed card is received by its recipient, it can be activated by calling a phone number, he said.
Morgan said Davis was always interviewed by phone and would ask that the benefit cards be mailed immediately to a Utah address on which she would then place a “mail hold.” She would then pay for a “premium forward,” through which the postal service would forward all mail held for that address to a designated address — in this case, Davis’ Little Rock apartment.
Davis acknowledged that she sometimes used the cards herself, and other times sold them and used the cash to pay her utilities, rent and car payment.
Morgan said Davis obtained $56,185 in fraudulent SNAP benefits from Texas and $69,506 in fraudulent benefits from Louisiana. Combined with the Utah-based fraud, he said, Davis was responsible for obtaining $262,691 in fraudulent benefits.
When Marshall asked Davis how she got the addresses she used to fool the states into thinking she was an in-state resident, she said, “I went on Zillow.”
“Isn’t that a real estate site?” he asked, to which she nodded yes.