LEWISTON, Maine — The owner of the Union Super Market has been indicted on charges that he defrauded the Maine welfare system of more than $5,000 over five years.
Andre A. Beaupre, 61, of Auburn was indicted on a felony charge of theft by deception after an investigation that involved Lewiston police, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, the attorney general’s office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to the indictment, Beaupre fraudulently accepted payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, as well as from Electronic Benefits Transfer cards.
Police said Beaupre allowed some of his regular customers to buy products such as cigarettes and liquor with welfare money. Those items cannot be legally purchased with SNAP benefits or EBT cards. Police said that by letting his customers do so, he gave himself an advantage over other stores that don’t accept those payments for liquor, cigarettes and other banned items.
According to the indictment, Beaupre is accused of committing the fraud between June 2006 through September 2011.
The indictment of Beaupre is part of an investigation that aims to crack down on cheats in the welfare system. Lewiston police have been working with local and federal agencies as part of the crackdown on abuses of the system.
Union Super Market sits at the corner of Oak and Union streets in Lewiston.
This can’t be true…. There isn’t any welfare fraud in Maine!
If you think it’s worth it to peck away at 5,000 and NOT look at the huge amounts that corporations/government are stealing from YOU, then have at it. Welfare fraud is only smoke and mirrors to keep people like YOU from looking at the BIG picture and the REAL thieves. I think the state has run about four articles about welfare fraud and they are never sure of the amount, but the average has been 5,000 and what does it cost to take it through the judicial system???? and the state gets what in the end?????? NOT worth it when you put it on paper. Yet, it seems NO ONE cares that the Maine appropriations committee continues to steal from the taxpayers!!!!!!
True but, with shrinking dollars it’s too bad to make cuts from the people who need help.Every dollar can help the people who need the help.This is just one case. How many more $5000.00 cases out there? It adds up to a lot of money and this is stealing from the taxpayers. So fatboy 07 you saying the the State should turn a blind eye and let this continue. Re-read the article again. It says regular customers so this tells me he has a few customers who don’t need the help it they can spend their benefits in this way.
Why go after pennies when you can go after dollars?? It doesn’t make sense to me. NO I think theft is theft. Would you go after the small child that took a pack of gum or would you go after the bank robber????
So in the same sense if someone broke into your house and only stole your toaster, should the police say “well, it’s just a toaster, we’re not going to investigate this”.
Your comparison of welfare fraud as “the (small) child that took a pack of gum” is a typical liberal view.
And your view is the greedy, hateful GOP that wants to sweep all your party theft under the table and spread your hateful pollution of the poor all over so that no one notices what the GOP is doing!!!!
It’s hard to believe someone defends stealing, no matter how small. Makes one wonder if you might be cheating the system too. You certainly can’t be a taxpayer.
I’ve been paying taxes since the age of 15 and NEVER collected a penny of welfare. Thank GOD I’ve NEVER NEEDED to. Wow imagine someone like myself that pays taxes and doesn’t hate the needy???
Go talk to Poloquin!
He cheated you and they swept it under the rug!
And You Support these guys?
But you don’t condone theft no matter how small!
Go watch the Movie Les Miserables!
wow! bad mood or bad attitude?
Neither……….I just can’t stand people who don’t understand that the big money theft is far beyond welfare recipients. It’s with our own government, yet no one seems to care because the GOP owns most all the stations that spread hatred of the less fortunate to keep the focus off their own theft………….
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Typical ignore the issue approach by pointing to a completely irrelevant issue.
Welfare fraud is bad and should be rooted out. Corporate welfare (I’m guessing that’s the target of the tirade) is bad too. Let’s stop them both…
You hit that right on the head! Five grand over five years? Are they serious? Like you say, what about the real crime from politicians who are all in bed with the lobbyists and their corporate captains.
One of the first things the Lepage Administration did was to hire 16 fraud investigators in DHHS. I am not saying there is not fraud, but to date I can only find a handful of prosecutions. Perhaps the investigators have not yet obtained enough evidence to bring further action. A better measure of the prevalence of fraud would be to find out how many open cases of fraud are being investigated. I doubt however that this would be public information.
Not all will be prosecuted, some will be handled civilly with penalties and ineligiblity for further benefits.
There are threads on AMG going back years, with articles showing convictions for welfare and other benefit fraud.
Guess prosecuting the little guys hasn’t solved the problem. Maybe the solution is to actually be PRO-ACTIVE and create a system that monitors purchases with SNAP and EBT cards. The problem is that LePage and company have gone after a general class of people, pretty much insinuating that they all abuse the system without actually coming out and saying it. And, frankly, LePage was guilty of aiding and abetting welfare abuse himself when, by his own admission and bragging, he said that he kept “his best” Marden’s employee at less than $10 an hour so she could qualify for welfare and Mainecare. Seems we have the Faux (pronounced Fox) guarding the hen house.
No we have a Pig Gaurding the Swill Pile!
The AG lets his buddy Poloquin go scott free for the Tax Fraud tree farm and Violation of the Constitution as related to his operating a buisness while employeed as Treasurer of the State and they go after some Robin Hood guy in a Mom and Pop store because he let some poor guys buy a few cigarettes, and you cheer The Sherriff of Naughty Ham on?
What ? Wal- mart is Now at a disadvantage because he sold some liquor to the Town drunk?
Man, you people have your prioritys all mixed up!
You cant see the forest for the trees!
I think it is perfectly fine–and justified–to crack down on welfare fraud in Maine. Because fraud obviously DOES exist. My problem is that people hold-up the very small percent of folks receiving public assistance who commit fraud and pretend they represent the VAST MAJORITYof poor people receiving benefits in Maine. They don’t, and study after study, after study proves that exact point (even studies done by very conservative groups find very low incident rates of “welfare fraud” in the state).
I am excited to see the BDN run *this* particular story. People seem to forget that there have to be businesses involved if all those terrible poor people are using their food stamps to buy beer and scratch tickets. Someone has to let them. And look who it ends up being… a small family owned business; the so-called “job creators” and moral backbone of America!
The funny thing about trying to label entire groups of people is that there will always be folks who prove your system of simple generalization false and problematic. Not all poor people are lazy welfare cheats and not all small business owners are honest, hard-working entrepreneurs.
It’s the other way around. It’s the very few who are very responsible and the majority who commit fraud. That is the problem. They’re not always ‘allowed’ to purchase those things. Often they dump out water and return bottles for smokes/liquor.
Simply saying something is true doesn’t make it so. Believing very strongly in a falsehood and repeating it over and over again can’t change reality.
If you want to show empirical evidence that “the majority” of welfare recipients commit fraud, I will gladly eat my hat. I happen to KNOW you can’t, because I’ve worked with social economic data for years, and I’ve seen pretty much every study that has ever been conducted on the issue–from groups as diverse as the American Enterprise Institute to the Center for American Progress. Left or right, NO ONE who knows anything about the issue would say fraud is anything but a costly outlier. They do argue that it needs to be addressed for both the credibility of the program, and to be sure to have all the funds needed to deliver the most services to the most needy people.
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Well said!
That is right not all are taking advantage of the system. Weed out the ones that are and there is more for those who truly need it.
But all Politicians that Pitt one Class of people against the other while ” THEY ” Milk the Golden Calf need to be run out on a Rail!
Thank you!
How much money is saved as a deterrent to others who would consider committing the same crime?
There’s people arrested weekly for outstanding traffic tickets weekly.The bottom line is these people don’t need help if they can spend their benefits in this way. Let’s help the people who need help.
I agree. If a person needs benefits from the state, it should be for things needed to survive. If it is against the law to buy things the state prohibits and you are accepting state monies, then comply with the law or have a consequensce. Remember, the funds that pay for someone’s welfare/assistance are paid by all who earn money/pay taxes. Their right to smoke or drink should not be paid for by the work others do.
Cracking down, start checking Bangor area stores, i will not mention any stores either so dont ask. But i know of at least three that sell cigarettes and liquor to them
have you reported them?
No need too, they have been reported several times and watched. They need to catch them in the act, these stores know that they need to look out for who is watching them
“Them”? So these stores are actually selling cigarettes and liquor to people on welfare? Being on welfare doesn’t deny a person from being able to buy liquor and cigarettes. That sounded a tad, strange. I had to point it out. While it’s not moral to many to waste money while on assistance, it’s not illegal as long as those people aren’t using food stamps with the store allowing it. Moral question or not, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere that judges a person at a counter based on their income level, as to what they’re allowed to, or not allowed to purchase. That’s for an individual to already know.
I’m much more po’d at people who were allowed to buy homes they couldn’t afford, contributing massively to this economy, than some people who might be down on their luck, and not able to hang out and grab a pint in a pub anymore. As a taxpayer, the two don’t even come close to each other.
Every time we do our taxes, I get a little po’d at Maine, but a lot po’d at the Federal end.
People shouldn’t buy things they can’t afford, PERIOD. Just sayin. ;)
Do you benefit from welfare fraud? Are you a DHHS case worker? Why do you object to catching theses guys?
Huh, I wonder what the post said that was so awful it had to be pulled?
I don’t know. He posted nothing that was so bad.
Prosecution is not a detterent? I guess if you have a bag of apples and some are rotten you just leave them there so you can develop more bad apples. After all those bad apples are just small potatoes. :-)
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Prosecution can have an immediate effect. As a tax preparer I saw the effect when the state prosecuted a local tax preparer and subjected many of his clients to audits. Many people came into my office wanting to file correctlyand not just his clients.
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If you prosecute someone who has committed welfare fraud and put them in jail you are STILL using taxpayer money to support them…but a heck of a lot more of it then they got in assistance. Do you always cut off your nose to spite your face?
The savings from detterence is greater than the cost of prosecuting. If someone gets away with it the word spreads.
etc
Then you don’t believe it is a deterrent to others who would consider doing the same or have been doing it. As a taxpreparer I have seen prosecutions work as a deterrent to others. There is a jump in those coming into my office to do their returns correctly when there is a local prosecution. If you want to just compare the cost of the prosecution with the crime of the one person being prosecuted then you are missing the big picture. Prosecution is just what is needed in an area that has been neglected causing people to believe there is little risk in breaking the law.
They can use cash option, dhs can not do anything about it , already tried and they lost from what i heard. What they do here is on the food stamp side is sell liquor and cigarettes, kind of dumb but its being done
It just makes no sense to me why a person who is supposedly “needy” is allowed to use welfare money to buy liquor and cigarettes. It’s destructive on so many levels. Who is in charge here?
Department of Health and Human Services. is in charge. But as they say its cash side they can use it on what they want, but if lepage does what he is supposed to do for those on tanf(cash side) will have to only use it in stores(not atm)and prove where the money is being used(by receipts with your ebt number)
He won’t be able to do that. A lot of people use the case portion towards paying their rent and most landlords don’t accept EBT cards for payment.
Not sure though he is pushing it in the state house to get it done
It won’t happen. The feds won’t allow it. It is a federal program and has to adhere to federal rules. TANF money is intended to help low income families be able to pay to keep a roof over their head. Not allowing people to take the cash out of an ATM machine so they can pay rent or utilities sort of defeats the whole purpose of the program. People with TANF won’t be paying their electric bill or rent. Instead they will be shopping at Walmart for things they don’t need.
Then they need to bring back the good ole’ voucher.
The voucher is through General Assistance, and that is still what is used. TANF recipients used to get a monthly check they cashed and food stamps were paper. This allowed people to just trade foodstamps at will. Putting the benefits on EBT cards made it easier to catch those who break the rules because it keeps a record of exactly where and when each purchase was made. If stores were capable, then they could add a fingerprint feature to prevent people from letting others use their EBT cards, but until that is readily available the system in place now is the best option.
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Why? Because they are getting a handout from ME! I have no problem giving a handout with strings attached…
There was another article from last February entitled “Benefits can buy booze, cigarettes, anything legal.” Here is a quote from that article:
“A spokesman for DHHS said there are no restrictions on the use of the
benefits. In fact, TANF and ASPIRE money, under federal law, can be used
for anything. DHHS is not allowed to require TANF or ASPIRE recipients
to submit receipts showing that the federally mandated benefits were
spent on intended items or services.”
http://www.sunjournal.com/news/city/2012/02/12/benefits-can-buy-booze-cigarettes-anything-legal/1153140
So, unless the store owner was allowing these people to purchase liquor etc. with their food stamps portion, what he did isn’t illegal.
Although it most certainly SHOULD be.
It was not cash side, it was food stamp side. Two different programs
Yeah, it does sound like he let them use foodstamps to buy that stuff, and if he does he deserves to have the book thrown at him.
However, if it was the cash on the EBT card and not foodstamps then he didn’t break the law.
oh i thought it was the ebt side too thats what the article states
“According to the indictment, Beaupre fraudulently accepted payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, as well as from Electronic Benefits Transfer cards.”
They call the card either way the snap card, kind of stupid but they do. So yes he did it on cash side
If the government starts telling ANYONE how to spend cash? Huge slippery slope and a lot of people who pay with credit/loans will find out first hand. Welfare isn’t only afforded to the poor.
We shouldn’t be giving blank checks to people, either.
Once again, it makes no sense that taxpayer money is paying for people’s bad habits.
As I said above in a few other posts, no it shouldn’t. I’m still too mad at those who bought homes worth 80 grand for 300 grand, then government bailing out the banks, to even begin to get angry about this ‘issue’. Wanna talk blank checks? ;)
The article makes it sound like they’re proposing it’s illegal to use the EBT card at all for those items. Does it not?
“Police said Beaupre allowed some of his regular customers to buy
products such as cigarettes and liquor with welfare money. Those items
cannot be legally purchased with SNAP benefits or EBT cards.”
So, here is a real case of welfare fraud and who is it? A business owner with a name similar to our governor’s. All of them are crooks, eh Gov?
Just trying to make a buck
If using 4 State Agencies to investigate a $5,000 fraud that occurred over 5 years makes you all feel better, so be it. I think it’s a colossal waste of resources and feel their has to be something more important to spend these agencies time, money, and attention on. How about getting back some of the MILLIONS of dollars that LePage’s right hand man, House Speaker Robert W. Nutting defrauded the state out of?
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personally i find this irritating that this store ( im sure many others are out there) enable others to misuse our state programs funded by our taxes to buy booze and cigarettes when i see others in this state who work 40 hours a week and still cant cut it for the month get little to no help. that is the problem with this state, so backwards in all ways.
VERY well said!!
I am not the one who brought Politics on this comment thread…YOU were. We go from a man frauding welfare and your talking about Tea Baggers….how do you know this man isnt a Democrat…what would you have to say then? Stick up for Democrats and say he made a mistake? Your political status has absolutly nothing to do with why someone decided to cheat or steal from their place of work…It is called pure GREED and having NO morals…….
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It was not so much Tea baggers…its the point that you brought politics into something that should be more about morals.. Dont you agree that no morals and huge greed is a major reason why this country is the way it is? We are all capable of it, and obviously they have more on this store owner than we all know…they dont arrest people just because “someone said so”…they must have the proof. And by the way, I am Democrat..which makes all this pettiness between parties so beyond sickining at this point……..
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Someone should investigate glenn geiser..aka “mr come join the PAARTY”. he OWNS a huge and profitable used car business and collects food stamps..hmmm..
Because the Teapublicans attack all social programs for the needy and always claim that the majority commit fraud when in reality it is a tiny, tiny percentage who do.
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I’m not defending fraud at all, but I have to laugh and say something, I’m sorry. Every single day people who don’t get benefits commit fraud or use money they don’t have to pay for things. The needy make me less sick because they’re not wearing ten thousand dollar tailored suits when they’re doing it. *shaking head* And no. I’m not a bleeding hearted liberal, but I checked the votes leading up to tarp and if anyone hasn’t, they really need to know who’s really to blame for all this desperation on the poverty level and small business, to make people do this stuff. Look back quite a few years, when a certain party I used to hold a card for was running things on Capital Hill. Made me sick. Nice little path right up to GWB exiting the door.
OK, I feel better now. Not as much guilt when I do that. LOL ;)
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Its good to see our leaders enforcing some of our Laws, i just wish they would enforce them all.
As a business person i have found it necessary to use our ‘Small Claims’ Court on a number of occasions, so far i have spent well over $7000.00 in Sheriff fee’s, and Court Costs, while losing well over $25,000 in legally obtained Judgments, as the Courts simply will not enforce its own orders. I always thought it was a crime to take money under false pretenses, but our Courts do it daily.
The EBT card are converted to cash by selling them for a percentage of face value also, you can’t enforce laws based on a cost benefit analysis, $1000 worth of fraud and if it costs $1001 to prosecute we wont proceed thats ridiculous
Big deal.
The problem is that LePage and his crowd have gone after a set number of recipients instead of going specifically after the ones who cheat. Like the college girl working at Walmart who complained that people used their EBT cards for ineligible items which SHE RANG UP FOR THEM. If it wasn’t for people like her, the cheats couldn’t, well, cheat. Same for the business owner mentioned above-Iwonder how often he complained about people using their SNAP and EBT cards for ineligible items?
All welfare is wrong. If you or a company did not EARN the money then it should never have been taken from those who earned it in the first place. If we had NO welfare of any type there could be no welfare fraud.
So, I can flag all of the comments that I disagree with? Childish.
Witch Hunt!