Crime & Law
Chicago Grocery Mart Owner Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison For Defrauding Millions in SNAP Benefits
The Dirksen Courthouse is pictured in Chicago. (Capitol News Illinois)
The owner of a grocery mart on Chicago’s Southwest Side is set to serve three years in prison after admitting he fraudulently redeemed millions of dollars’ worth of food stamp benefits over the course of eight years.
A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Yousef Abu Alhawa, 50, to 42 months in prison after he pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and tax charges. Alhawa was also ordered to pay $8.9 million in restitution to the U.S. Treasury, IRS and the state of Illinois.
Alhawa has owned and operated the Olive Mount Mart grocery store in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood for more than 20 years, but according to federal prosecutors, in 2011 he began fraudulently redeeming benefits under both the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC.
Prosecutors alleged Alhawa maintained multiple checking accounts at different banks set up to receive benefit payments purportedly redeemed through his store.
From 2011 to 2019, Alhawa fraudulently redeemed SNAP and WIC benefits for non-eligible items or cash even though no eligible food items were ever sold by Olive Mount Mart to those recipients or their designees.
Alhawa admitted in a plea agreement with the government that he caused a loss to those programs of more than $8.3 million.
“Defendant’s offense conduct was serious,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “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.”
