GOP Food stamp fraud bill passes NM House of Representatives

Rep. Monica Youngblood
Republican - Albuquerque
Elect Monica Youngblood 

SANTA FE  – A bill that toughens penalties for those who try to trade food stamps and EBT cards for cash passed 65-0 in the New Mexico House of Representatives on Saturday and the bill’s sponsor thinks the chances are good that the measure can get through the Legislature before the 30-day legislative session ends Thursday.

“You have instances where people were continually committing fraud and we couldn’t really aggregate those into a felony,” said bill sponsor Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque of House Bill 229. “That’s what this bill will do.”

Across the country, there have been reports of people going on Craigslist and offering to sell food stamps, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) checks or electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards for cash reports the New Mexico Watchdog.

Here in New Mexico, a gas station attendant in Albuquerque was caught on tape by KOB-TV trading $200 in food stamps for $100 in cash.

Last May, a couple from Farmington was arrested and charged with entering false transactions for food purchases using food stamps and then giving half the money they were reimbursed to the holder of the food stamps.

“It’s really easy to sell (food stamps and EBT cards),” Youngblood said. “People stand outside grocery stores and actually offer them for half their value. I hear from teachers that kids are coming to school hungry and that shouldn’t be the case in our state, especially with the amount of public assistance we have.”

HB229 would add gradations of severity, so that convictions for cashing in on more than $500 in assistance programs would amount to a fourth-degree felony; more than $2,500 would equal a third-degree felony and more than $20,000 would be a second-degree felony.

Youngblood’s bill sailed through two committees and the House floor without a dissenting vote. It now heads to the Senate.

“I’m hoping to get it fast-tracked through the Senate,” Youngblood said.

Police force man to have enemas, colonoscopy settle lawsuit for $1.6 million

"The truth is in there somewhere."

Police Forced Medical Procedures

• A southern New Mexico man was pulled over for not making a complete traffic stop was taken to two hospitals and forced by the police to endure 12 hours of anal probes, colonoscopies and enemas.
• In any sane nation the cops and hospital staff would be charged with sexual assault.

The American Police State  -  Authorities in Hidalgo County, N.M., have settled a lawsuit for $1.6 million with a man who claims they illegally made him undergo colonoscopies and enemas.

David Eckert, 54, filed a lawsuit against the county and its police department in 2013, for allegedly violating his constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures during a 12-hour ordeal early in January 2013, CNN reported.

The suit said Eckert was pulled over for not properly stopping at a stop sign in Deming, N.M. reports UPI and Breitbart News.

During the traffic stop, Eckert "was avoiding eye contact with me," his "left hand began to shake," and he stood "erect (with) his legs together," a police affidavit detailing the stop stated.
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Eckert was told he could leave the scene, but before doing so he consented to a search of him and his vehicle, during which a K-9 dog hit a spot on the driver's seat, according to the affidavit. However, no drugs were found in the vehicle.
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A "Hidalgo County K-9 officer did inform me that he had dealt with Mr. Eckert on a previous case and stated that Mr. Eckert was known to insert drugs into his anal cavity and had been caught in Hidalgo County with drugs in his anal cavity," the affidavit said.

Eckert was placed under "investigative detention" and brought to the Deming Police Department around 2 p.m., then to a local hospital where "no drugs were found" after "an X-ray and two digital searches of his rectum by two different doctors," the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit alleged that while Eckert was in custody, he was forced to undergo three enemas and a colonoscopy, during which authorities found "no drugs." The plaintiff was in custody until about 1:25 a.m.

"(Authorities) acted completely outside the bounds of human decency by orchestrating wholly superfluous physical body cavity searches performed by an unethical medical professional," the plaintiff asserted.

Also see kxan.com - anal probes ordered.

A Forced Colonoscopy