How a Florida woman’s phone calls led to a $50,000 food ripoff of New York’s poor
More than $50,000 of public assistance that should have helped feed New York’s poor was stolen and used by a West Palm Beach woman with a history of fraud.
Guyanese Singh, 51, was sentenced to three years, six months in federal prison for ripping off $51,868 of Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP) benefits from about 120 people. In New York federal court, Singh pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
“Many of the victims were elderly and disabled,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. “All were poor. One victim reported that, in March 2022, when the victim needed to purchase food, the victim learned that her SNAP account had a zero balance. Another victim suddenly found that she too had no money to purchase food.”
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Over four years starting in April 2019, Singh worked a relatively simple scam. She’d phone SNAP recipients and tell them she worked for New York State. Once she got all the necessary personal information from them (birth date, Social Security number), she would resend the PINs on their electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards. Then she could use the EBT account numbers and PINs to loot the accounts with food buys in Florida for herself.
The prosecution wanted U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff to hit Singh with a sentence of 5 years and 10 months, arguing Singh’s history includes five criminal convictions, three of which were for fraud, and she has an outstanding forgery warrant in Palm Beach County. Also, despite a rough early life, Singh had job skills, previously had run businesses and, prosecutors noted, “the stability of a devoted partner, an engineer who has, what appears to be, a well-paying job.”
“Living with her partner in Florida, [Singh] had every reason to live a law-abiding life.”
The sentence fell closer to the two years that Lorraine Gauli-Rufo, representing Singh, wanted. Gauli-Rufo’s sentencing filing argued that, yes, Singh now has a supportive, financially stable partner, but survived a life of abuse by her father, the woman who gave birth to her, step brother and both fathers of her children.
The case was investigated by the New York City Department of Investigation and the Special Agents of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Special Agents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Sowlati of the general crimes unit handled the prosecution.
