Reverse Robin Hoods Charged at DPW

Earlier this year when CF took on welfare fraud and abuse within the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, angry e-mails, phone calls and adverse editorial rhetoric came pouring in, calling our position overblown, unwarranted and mean-spirited.

Turns out, critics continue to be proven wrong as prosecutions and convictions mount along with taxpayer savings.  As reported Monday by Pennsylvania Independent’s Melissa Daniels, the abuse has now reached within the Department of Public Welfare itself, where two of its own workers are accused of stealing $300,000 in taxpayer dollars.

Robin HoodAccording to the Pennsylvania Attorney General, one worker was caught on video and photo surveillance footage using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards to take the cash.  Now terminated, the DPW worker allegedly used the money for two cruises, and gambled the rest of your money away at Pennsylvania and New Jersey casinos.

Chalk that up as another win for the truly needy and taxpayers who are still celebrating the more than 600 recipients removed from the program after DPW found they didn’t even live in Pennsylvania.

So much for unneeded and overblown, eh? As for mean-spirited, I can’t think of anything much more so than stealing from the poor in order to make yourself rich.  I prefer those men in cuffs, not tights.