Posted on 04/10/2012 11:27:57 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Check out this Boston Police Department report from last Friday that you won't believe -- on second thought, you probably will believe it.
A convicted heroin dealer in Roxbury used his one phone call to reach out to someone and demand that they use his EBT card at the ATM machine to get some cash to bail him out.
Read my column about this in the Wednesday Herald. We'll also have Kimball Clark's mugshot and his rap sheet. And guess what we'll be talking about at 3:08 on the radio. (Column(s) to follow in thread)
Howie Carr list ping. Story and (below) Howie column
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220411pols_welfare_abuse_runs_deep/srvc=home&position=0
Pols: Welfare abuse runs deep
By John Zaremba and Chris Cassidy
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - Updated 2 hours ago
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A convicted drug dealer — who cops said wanted to use cash from his taxpayer-funded EBT card to post bail — is the new face of welfare abuse, according to tough-minded lawmakers who are pushing the reform-resistant Patrick administration for a crackdown.
Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges — again — when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,” according to a Boston police report.
“It’s another outrage,” said state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton), a member of the EBT Task Force who criticized the group for failing to push tough restrictions on the use of the controversial cards. “When we were on the EBT Card Commission, I fought to get bail bondsmen on that list of places where people could not use their EBT cards. They fought me on it and told me people can’t use their EBT cards in that way.”
Beacon Hill was forced to mull reforms after the Herald reported people were spending welfare cash on booze, cigarettes and scratch cards.
“Obviously the Department of Transitional Assistance has no idea how people use these cards and how the cards work,” O’Connell said.
State Rep. Russell E. Holmes (D-Boston), another advocate for tough reforms, said he was hardly surprised that a drug suspect would try to bail himself out with money from a taxpayer-funded EBT card.
“It’s exactly the type of activity that can occur when folks are allowed to get money off their EBT card,” Holmes said.
Clark, who gave police a South End address, is charged with distribution of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school. He posted bail and was released, but it is unclear where he got the money. Police said he had $758 in cash on him when he was busted Friday in what cops say was a deal in progress in Dorchester, but that cash was seized. Efforts to reach Clark for comment yesterday were unsuccessful. It is unclear whether he has an EBT card assigned to him. His prior convictions include assault and battery in 2007 and cocaine possession with intent to distribute in 2006, according to the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office.
Because cash is hard to trace, EBT-funded bail payments could be widespread, Holmes said. “One of the arguments I’ve heard is we don’t know how much fraud and abuse there is. But that’s the problem — we don’t know because there’s no way to track it. When it comes to how much of this has happened in jail, there’s no way for us to know that.”
O’Connell and other lawmakers filed a bill last week pushing for tougher regulations than those recommended by the EBT commission, which advised banning the cards at nail salons, tattoo parlors, strip clubs and casinos — but not at ATMs, jewelry stores, health clubs, rent-a-centers and cruise liners.
O’Connell’s bill specifically prohibits bail bondsmen from accepting EBT cards and bars cash access through ATMs. O’Connell said her bill also would have allowed the Boston police officer overhearing the suspect’s call to inform him he couldn’t use the card toward his bail.
And Howie’s column.
Time to bail on EBTs
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
State Auditor Suzanne Bump says the only evidence she’s seen so far of EBT card abuse are “anecdotes.”
So Suzanne, here’s another “anecdote” that went down in Roxbury last Friday night.
The drug control unit out of Area B-2 made a heroin bust on Fayston Street near Blue Hill Avenue. They arrested a party named Kimball Clark, and after he was lugged, Clark got to make his one phone call. According to the police report, here’s what happened:
“Once booking was completed and Suspect Clark made his telephone call as allowed, he was heard by Officer Flaherty stating to whomever he had called ‘GET MY EBT CARD AND GO TO THE ATM AND GET THE MONEY TO BAIL ME OUT, GET ME OUTA HERE TONIGHT.’ ”
Those are the cops’ capital letters, by the way. Let’s look on the bright side, though. What this means is that not every welfare recipient is using his EBT card to buy jewelry or tattoos or go on ship cruises. Some of them are using their EBT cards for ... bail money.
Auditor Bump is going to do a report on the Department of Transitional Assistance, and she wants to get beyond these pesky anecdotes “that end up polarizing the participants in the discussion.”
And I hear the moonbats saying, you’re just demonizing the most vulnerable members of our society, the people who fell through the safety net, the victims of George Bush and Halliburton. This poor oppressed citizen has no money, right?
Wrong. Back to the report:
“Officer (Kevin) Clark recovered (5) five separate folds of United States Currency from Suspect Clark’s person, one fold containing $12.00 and the second contained $65.00, these were located in Suspect Clark’s left front pants pocket. The remaining three folds were recovered from Suspect Clark’s wallet, one contained $100.00, the second contained $81.00 and the third contained $500.00, the total money seized was $758.00.”
When was the last time you had $758 cash walking around money? And I’ll bet you don’t even have an EBT card.
Another anecdote, from the police report:
“Officer then observed Suspect Clark look at his cellular phone.”
The man has a cellphone, too! Granted, so does almost everybody nowadays, but if he claims to be so broke that he needs an EBT card to make ends meet, how can he possibly afford even a cheapo phone?
Clark was charged with distribution Class A drugs, distribution Class A drugs within 1,000 feet of a school zone and distribution Class A second offense.
According to the BPD, this EBT cardholder is a convicted drug dealer.
How many more anecdotes do you want Auditor Bump?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061123718
How do I get me one of them EBT cards?
Man, do they have America PW.
End welfare. Save billions. Give them a choice - work or starve.
Today half the nation lives off the production of the other half and money borrowed from foreigners. In Nature, the producers survive to procreate while the weak non producers starve or are eaten. Survival of the fittest, Nature’s way of weeding out the non producers ensures the health and survival of the species,
Over the last four to five generations our society has interfered with nature by enabling the unproductive to survive without effort or contribution. The unproductive class has grown exponentially to the point it now threatens the health and well being of the productive class. It is ironic the progressive elites who have upset the natural order are the same people crusading to protect Nature from man.
Look. You can’t get cash from the FOOD portion of the EBT card.
These days, income checks for disability and unemployment are put on an ‘EBT CARD’.
It would be no different if he were receiving checks, and putting them into a personal bank account and had someone go get the money for him.
The outrage here should be that a convicted drug dealer is on disability and/or unemployment.
Not if you are white.
EBT = Emergency Bail Transfer...............
EBT cash is usually less than $100. a month. How can that be used for bail or at a casino (for more than 5 minutes) ?
People can get them fraudulently (or steal them) and maybe in some states they can get a lot more.
Lynn MA: A woman using an EBT card that didn’t belong to her
bought a bunch of soda at a store. She then took the cans
to a redemption machine there and started putting them in,
STILL FULL OF SODA. Damaged the machine.
>>LYNN — Police arrested a woman at a Lynn Stop & Shop Saturday after she allegedly stole $64 worth of soda cans from the store and attempted to feed them into a digital can return machine in exchange for money, according to a Lynn Police incident report. According to the report, Officer Craig Fountain was watching loss prevention video while on detail at the grocery store, located at 35 Washington St., around 8:45 p.m. when he observed 36-year-old Tina Cafarelli...purchase 18 12-packs of assorted soda and pay with a state-issued electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card, which she allegedly also stole. Cafarelli immediately took the cans to the store’s digital can return machine and attempted to deposit them without emptying them.
>>When Fountain and another officer approached Cafarelli, the report said, she initially told them her name was Susan Russell, the name on the EBT card, and refused to give Fountain her real name, instead giving two false names and two false social security numbers. She was eventually identified at police headquarters after being taken into custody, the report said.
>>A Lynn District Court judge ordered Cafarelli held at Essex County House of Correction in lieu of $250 bail during an arraignment Monday, where she was formally charged with larceny under $250 by false pretense, destruction of property over $250, obstruction of justice and receiving stolen property. Stop & Shop manager Kevin Wilson estimated the damage to the machine to be “well over $250,” according to the report. Wilson, could not be reached for comment. Cafarelli is due back in court on Feb. 14.
(not sure how case turned out)
http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2012/01/24/news/news07.txt
Boston Herald last Dec.:
>>Abuse of the Electronic Benefits Transfer cards that are issued to needy families in Massachusetts is apparently so rampant that we won’t be surprised if drug dealers start hanging “We Accept EBT!” signs in their car windows.
>>The latest scam was revealed this week, with prosecutors alleging that employees of four Lynn convenience stores allowed customers to withdraw hundreds of dollars from their EBT accounts, which was then used to buy crack cocaine. The stores kept half the withdrawn cash as a fee, authorities allege.
As I understand it, any cash benefit on an EBT card can go instead via direct deposit into your bank accout . . . for those who have bank accounts. These stories seem to fit what used to be called when I was in college, the "disorganized poor" -- i.e., they have deeper problems than lack of money!
-—EBT cash is usually less than $100. a month. How can that be used for bail or at a casino (for more than 5 minutes) ?-—
Well, it’s the principle, right?
But believe it or not, 20,000 EBT cards are “lost” every month in Massachusetts. That is not a typo.
That’s true, they’ve already got almost all the minorities dependent on government,
so they have to “expand” their scope to include as many as possible in the dependency pool.
"Trayvon Martin could be my son."
Ha...
update from Boston Herald:
>>A fed-up House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the Herald he is fast-tracking EBT card reforms and has proposed tougher crackdowns — including a ban on using the cards for bail money — as a major part of the House budget unveiled today at the State House.
“Having read of some of the abuses which you’ve published at various times, it just continues to anger me in terms of trying to get some control over the program to make sure these types of abuses don’t exist,” DeLeo told the Herald in a sit-down interview inside his State House office this morning.
DeLeo’s plan makes it illegal to use the taxpayer-funded cards to make bail or pay fines, to join health clubs, to gamble, or to buy firearms, porn, cosmetics, travel services, tattoos, jewelry, or tickets to sporting events or movies.
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