FILE – This Dec. 20, 2013, file photo shows shoppers passing through the Sweet Auburn Curb Market in Atlanta. Cuts to the nation’s food stamp program enacted earlier this year are only affecting four states, far from the sweeping reform that Republicans had pushed, according to an Associated Press review. As a result, it’s unclear if the law will realize the estimated $8.6 billion in savings over 10 years that the GOP had touted. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) Terry Stinson, the owner of a Atlanta-area convenience store, has been sentenced to five years and seven months in prison and ordered to pay more than $800,000 in restitution after a jury found him guilty of more than $1 million in food stamp fraud.
People who received food stamps brought them to Stinson instead of using them to buy groceries as intended. Stinson exchanged cash for the food stamps, paying less than face value for the vouchers, according to John Horn, acting U.S. attorney.
“The [women, infants and children and supplemental nutritional assistance program benefits] are designed to meet the basic but critical nutritional needs of low-income households,” said Horn. “By paying significantly less than face value of the vouchers with cash, Stinson’s greed defeated an important purpose of the program, to ensure that mothers, children, and low-income families receive nutritious food.”
Stinson owned and operated six convenience stores in Gwinnett County, Georgia, including the Nu Energy Foods store in Lawrenceville. Those stores were authorized in Georgia to redeem food stamp vouchers in exchange for food items like infant formula, milk and cheese.
Between 2009 and 2011, Nu Energy Foods redeemed more than $2.3 million in WIC vouchers, which the U.S. Attorney said was about $2 million more than the average of similar vendors.