A Chicago grocery store owner has been sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison for fraudulently redeeming millions of dollars in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
Yousef Abu Alhawa, who owned a grocery store in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side, admitted to fraudulently redeeming or causing others to redeem SNAP and WIC benefits for non-eligible items or cash between 2011 and 2019. He also redeemed these benefits on behalf of stores that were not eligible to participate in either program. According to his plea agreement with prosecutors, Alhawa caused a loss of more than $8.3 million to the programs.
Alhawa, 50, of Lockport, Illinois, pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and tax charges. The tax offenses involved filing false income tax returns from 2015 through 2017, resulting in federal and state tax losses exceeding $610,000.
U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger sentenced Alhawa on Wednesday to 42 months in prison and ordered him to pay $8.9 million in restitution to the U.S. Treasury, IRS, and State of Illinois.
The sentencing was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Ramsey E. Covington, Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago; and Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Chicago Field Office. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General also assisted with the case.
“Defendant’s offense conduct was serious,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower stated in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “SNAP is the nation’s largest federally funded nutrition assistance program. His actions not only deprived those programs of vital financial resources that could otherwise have been made available to deserving recipients, but also risked sowing general disfavor and distrust of government benefit systems.”
