Maserati owner arrested in welfare fraud sweep

A Cerritos woman was due in court Friday after being arrested in a massive welfare fraud sweep for receiving more than $60,000 in welfare benefits while allegedly concealing her ownership of a business, home and Maserati sports car.

Tangela Ridgeway, 35, was arrested earlier this week with eight other alleged welfare scammers. She is charged with 16 counts of welfare fraud, including aid by misrepresentation and perjury by false application for aid, and 14 counts of perjury by declaration, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Ridgeway is accused of failing to disclose that she owned a business, property and several vehicles. Investigators seized her 2006 Maserati and Nissan SUV and discovered large amounts of unreported income and bank accounts, according to prosecutors.

Source

I haven't seen it yet on the board so I decided to post it here, if not in the right forum please move mods.

Comment

Well this is disgusting, the article mentioned she could get 19 years in in prison, I hope the jury doesn't go easy on her.

Amazing how some people can pull that off.

GM

[edit on 21-6-2010 by Grey Magic]

Well, good. It's about time they were cracking down on these things.

I have no issues with taxes going to those families that need them.

But to outright lie and take, take, take, when we are in a financial crisis as it is. Well, that's disgusting behavior.

These kinds of things make me so angry. The sad part is, even when you know of things of this nature going on - you can report them but it does no good.

Case in point: I know a person who for years and years has been claiming foodstamps, medicaid etc for her and her kids. Meanwhile she has her baby's daddy there living with her (who was working). Not to mention she had a settlement a while back and got a ton of money for it. She put it into her bank account and DCF found out about it. She withdrew the thousands of dollars and kept it in her house because they were going to take her benefits away. (She actually argued that since she doesn't work she shouldn't have to pay for their food out of her money) Then told them that they had a really nice holiday with the money that suddenly dissapeared. On top of all that she goes to pain managment (which she doesn't really need) the state pays for all her medications which they then turn around and sell on the street.

So yeah, I have absolutely NO sympathy for people like this. I hope they have to pay every single cent back and then some.

There are people out there that are being denied claims for help. People who are being pushed aside because the states are so backlogged.

It makes me sick.

Sorry /rant off

~Tragic~

[edit on 21-6-2010 by Tragic]

there will always be people who take advantage of the system.

The only solution is to get rid of the system.

Human nature dictates that if there is an easier way to survive, then people will take it.

How does that compare to the corporate welfare bankers,

with multi-car garages full of lamborghinis, caddies, benzes, vettes, & stretch limos?

Next to their 10 or 20 million dollar estates that cover acres of manicured lawns & pools?

And their secret UBS accounts designed to dodge all the vast taxes they are supposed to be paying?

And then there are all the little starlets & poolboys they keep on retainer to make life gratifying.

Guess these welfare frauds just don't know how to criminally loot the treasury the way those in the gated, criminal elite gangsters do.

Just how much money do banks make laundering hundreds of billions in dirty money?

A freaking lot more than those poor so-called welfare slobs.

[edit on 21-6-2010 by slank]

That answers why people who truly need the help cant get it...

This is nothing new. Remember the Welfare Queens, driving around in their Cadillacs?

Most on welfare either screw the taxpayer legally or illegally.

If you have ever witnessed a 30 yr old grandmother with a 16 year old daughter with a baby of her own, all on welfare....then you know exactly what I am talking about.



[edit on 21-6-2010 by Carseller4]

Octomom is the single best example of how broken the system is.

BTW same general area. Was she part of this ring?

Why is it people only 'see' [comprehend] it when it happens in a scale they can relate to?

They see the little mosquito,

but not the 900 pound gorilla of
Pentagon trillion dollar wars over imaginary things so they can funnel more money to Blackwater [who just got a 120 million dollar contract in Afghanistan] for hookers, strippers, double billing taxpayers, gun smuggling, gun running & committing atrocities that complete undercut any good the US military might accidentally do otherwise.

Corporate welfare for KBR, Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Ratheon, GE, etc,
all to the tune of

HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars.

And we are all supposed to be fooled with expected Pavlovian responses to sloganeering such as:
'Support the troops'
'National security'
'War on terrorism'

Add to that the fact that the oil companies aren't paying us the royalties they are required to, supposedly because of a 'mistake' at MMS and on top of that they get tax breaks for tens of billions of dollars.

The most recent supposed healthcare 'reform' bill is just a subsidy for the criminal insurance companies & big drug companies.

Trillion dollar Bank bailouts anyone?

You get bothered over relatively trivial amounts going out the front door, while your entire national treasury is being looted out the back.

Because people maintain no frame of priorities & scale they are most often self impeding.

I am a member of a stupid species.
made all the more idiotic to imagine themselves intelligent when the evidence makes that a laughable absurdity.

I dream of a nice planet to live on, free from the reckless endangerment of blind stupid people.

Yes, the government does the same things and on a MUCH bigger scale.

But does that make 'regular' people who fraud the system any less guilty?

If the governments themselves won't play by the rules, how can the people of said government be expected to?

Now turn that last statement around and you have the same situation.

Two wrongs, still don't make a right.

reply to post by Grey Magic


This makes me so angry. I cannot even get a new set of dentures to replace mine, which are 27 years old and really dull, and this woman uses lies and falsehoods to get all that money from Welfare. No wonder Welfare is broke. People are defrauding Medicare and Medicaid also, is there no end to it? I hope the jail her for a very long time.

For every 1 that's caught there are 20 who arent.