Ceres man charged with federal welfare fraud at his Livingston convenience store

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Ceres man suspected of defrauding a food stamps program at his convenience store in Livingston.

Bharpur Singh, 39, is charged with defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.

Singh owns and operates Dollar Mart, which was authorized to accept SNAP benefits from customers to pay for eligible food items with an electronic benefits transfer card. The purchase price is immediately deducted from the customer’s SNAP account, and the store’s bank account is credited for the purchase price.

Stores are not permitted to let customers use the federal assistance program to buy ineligible items or trade cash for the SNAP benefits. Federal prosecutors said Singh traded the benefits for cash from October 2008 until May.

Singh would swipe a SNAP card for a certain amount, give the customer cash for about half the amount of the transaction and keep approximately the other half from his cash register for himself, the prosecutors said.

On numerous occasions, Singh accepted SNAP benefits as payment for ineligible items, such as beer, cigarettes, toilet paper, toys and diapers, according to the indictment.

If convicted, Singh would face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of fraud, along with a five-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for each count of unauthorized use of USDA benefits.

This story was originally published October 31, 2014 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Ceres man charged with federal welfare fraud at his Livingston convenience store."