Louisville, Kentukki – Mother -a single one who relied on Federal food assistance She lost her advantages in 2020 after investigators from Kentucky came to the conclusion that they had made fraud.
The state claimed that she made several purchases on the same day, tried to overload her account several times, made several incorrect pins and sometimes made purchases as a whole, which are unlikely during typical grocery jogging.
A woman from Salersville in Appalachi Kentukki had an explanation: she worked in a store. She sometimes bought lunch there, and then received products after work. Her child also sometimes used his card.
The administrative hearing employee knocked it out with Additional nutrition assistance program (SNAP) Regardless of this, based solely on the allegedly suspicious purchase scheme. She sued – and won.
“Dragonian – to take the benefits of the mothers -lobges without obvious and convincing evidence that deliberate human trafficking took place at a time when a lack of food is so common,” said the Judge of the district Franklin Thomas Wingate in his decision of 2023.
Over the past five years, Kentukki Office for Health and Family Services He brought hundreds of cases of fraud, which largely depend on transaction data in order to cancel the food of people.
Judges, lawyers and legal experts said in an interview and in court documents that such evidence proves little. The public radio Kentukka examined dozens of decisions in an administrative hearing and court documents over the past five years, when the cabinet was relying on the purchase model to prove that the person “sold trade” or sold, their benefits.
Kentukki is so aggressive in the disqualification of people from Snap that the state is the second in the country for administrative disqualities for the capita, in comparison with Florida, according to the latest federal data since 2023.
In the last decade of disqualification in Kentukki, it increased from less than 100 in 2015 to more than 1800 in 2023. And more than 300 others were accused of sale or incorrect use of their benefits from January 2024, according to data received in Kentukki public radio.
In 2023, another judge of the District Franklin ordered the Cabinet of Ministers to stop the disqualification of persons on the basis of exclusively transaction data, but from the moment of the decision, at least three trials claim that the health agency continues to present such cases.
Transactional data cannot prove the intention to make fraud and show the actual result of which one is an individual transaction, the professor of the law of the University of Kentukki Kory Kory Dodds said: “I am not saying that people did not do this, I did not make fraud either, but I don’t think that the cabinet in many cases fulfilled their burden of evidence.”
Kentukki receive a notification of their alleged suspicious mail by mail, in which they are asked to voluntarily abandon their right to hear and automatically accept punishment. In the first violation, this is usually an annual ban on the picture. They must also repay the full amount that, according to the state, they used the wrong use.
Often these cases include a relatively small amount of money. Records show that since 2022 more than 900 people were started for “trafficking in people” or improper use for less than $ 1,000. The lowest amount amounted to 14 cents.
The state was strongly based on administrative hearings since 2015, and by 2023 almost a quarter of all disqualifications were through the refusal. Some trials argue that people did not fully understand the consequences of refusals, and were recommended to sign officials.
Kentukka’s public radio has examined more than two dozen cases since 2020, in which the Cabinet of Ministers accused a person of trading trading, using only models of expenses, despite the refusal of participants or the lack of an answer – and without any other evidence or interviews presented in accordance with the decisions of administrative hearing.
Kendra Steel, representative Health office and family servicesHe refused to appoint an interview with office officials after several requests. Style said in an email that “we never” brought cases of trafficking, based exclusively on transaction data, and admitted that this would not be enough to prove intentions.
In response to another question, Steal wrote an investigation into fraud accusations in considering the income, life situations “and models of expenses that indicate people trafficking.” It did not indicate how any of these factors can be used to prove the deliberate improper use or sale of the advantages of SNAP, or how it differs from relying on transactional data, which is essentially a cost scheme. Style said in another electronic letter that they also interviews Snap sellers and recipients.
Approximately 4 out of 25 Kentukki residents suffer from the lack of food security, similar to a national rate of about 14%, according to the analysis of the Associated Press Analysis of US censuses and feeding America.
USDA will be Stop collecting and releasing statistics about the absence of food security After October, saying on September 20 that the numbers became “excessively politicized.” The solution comes after Federal reduction in financing for food and food safety programs. throughout the country.
In the last financial year, 1 out of 8 Kentukki won from SNAP, previously called food coupons. The insufficient security in the rural areas of Kentukki is even more sharp, and the legal representation is more difficult.
“People who benefit from these programs are one of the people who we need to help most in this country,” said Dodds. “This is our colleague from the Kentukki, who are hungry as a result of unreasonable waste, fraud and abuse.”
The Cabinet of Ministers rejected the KPR request for notes to the case of individual fraud accusations, starting from the beginning of 2024, which will include evidence used in charges. But the decisions of the administrative hearing considered by KPR from 2020 to 2023 included evidence that the Cabinet of Ministers relied on; Rumor officers often said that a person received trade in their advantages, based on purchases models, which the state considered suspicious.
National legal experts who specialize in Snap Access say excessive dependence on transaction data is not unique to Kentucca. Initially, transactional data was designed as a tool for identifying potential cases of fraud, and not as a means to prove this, said David Super, professor of Georgetown's law.
He studied Snap Disqualifications for decades and saw many cases when he believes that transactional data is incorrectly interpreted as direct evidence of misconduct, instead of demanding that the state build cases with witnesses, testimonies, sentences and transactions on guilty admission.
In one edited decision on the state administrative hearing in 2023, an employee, according to the hearings, decided that a woman in the eastern city of Kentukki Macca received her advantages because she made eight transactions during the year. The decision also said that she checked her balance several times, made several insufficient attempts of the fund and several times introduced her PIN code.
She lost her advantages during the year. In the appeal, the woman told the state that she had two children, and she recently discovered that she was pregnant.
“Everyone forgets to get something and must return to the store and get it,” she wrote, defending her purchases.
She received another hearing, but the result has not changed.
Officials of the cabinet recognized in cross exams during the 2023 case that transactions with the back to the back and buying the entire dollar are not prohibited in accordance with the SNAP rules, and do not say that the cabinet of ministers does not consider them suspicious.
But all these things are used as evidence – sometimes the only evidence – that a person incorrectly used his advantages.
Christie Goff, a pharmacy lawyer in Presonsburg in the south -east of Kentukka, saw many of these cases, although last year they decreased.
“In cases where I turned, there were very few cases when the client could not give me a completely reasonable explanation of these transactions, and not one of them was trading people,” Goff said. “There are no receipts, there are no video recordings to show that someone is doing something wrong. This is just the number written on the newspaper. ”
Speaking that the history of procurement is insufficient to prove human trafficking, the Judges of Kentukki did not overcome the state to change how it teaches employees or holds their pictures.
In response to a request for open entries, the office provided the KPR documents used to teach investigators for deliberate violations of the program. It seems that they are almost exclusively discussing transactional data, including a study of payments, large transactions and purchases of whole dollars.
In 2020, one appeal judges in Michigan decided on transaction data only to prove that the business of Snap was fraudulently used fraudulently.
Dodds believes that this should be a standard for all states, including Kentucky.
It is located in the early stages of a systematic revision of thousands of decisions on human trafficking cases from 2020 to 2023. The data of approximately 700 decisions in 2020 already show that many Kentuklyans were denied benefits before the state represents what he considers real evidence of guilt.
“Perhaps there are several cases in which I would say that there is real evidence that they did something wrong,” said the Dodds. “There was one where the woman was talking with the officer on the hearing, while she actively tried to sell her benefits … But cases with non -transactional data are extremely rare.”
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The journalist according to the Associated Press Casturi Pananjadi contributed to this report.
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This reporting is part of a series called “sow stability”, cooperation Between the Institute of Non -Profit News' Rural news network And the Associated Press was focused on how rural communities throughout the United States are guided by problems with the lack of food security. Nine non -profit news were involved in the series: LighthouseIN Capital bIN Latino NC LinkIN Investigate the Middle WestIN Jefferson County LighthouseIN HairIN Louisville public mediaIN Main Monitor And MinnpostThe Rural News network is financed by Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, among other things.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Department of Scientific Education of Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP bears sole responsibility for all content.
