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TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram and
Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw
announced that an Elizabeth grocery store
owner has been indicted on charges she obtained
hundreds of stolen vouchers for the federally
funded Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
nutrition program and used them to fraudulently
collect more than $25,000.
According
to Director Paw, Leocadia Cepeda, 37, of
Elizabeth, who owns G&S Supermarket
on Westminster Avenue in Elizabeth, was
indicted by a state grand jury on third-degree
charges of receiving stolen property, theft
by deception, and tampering with public
records or information. The indictment was
returned late yesterday and filed today
in Superior Court.
The
charges resulted from an ongoing investigation
by the Division of Criminal Justice that
began when the New Jersey Department of
Health and Senior Services and the Newark
Department of Health and Human Services
alerted the Division to suspected thefts
of vouchers from the Newark WIC Program,
one of 18 WIC programs in New Jersey.
WIC
is a federally funded program, administered
by the New Jersey Department of Health and
Senior Services, that provides low-income
women who are pregnant or breast feeding
and guardians of children up to age 5 with
vouchers to purchase nutritional necessities,
including baby formula, milk, orange juice
and cereal. The vouchers can be redeemed
at any store approved as a WIC vendor for
food items specifically listed on the voucher.
Once redeemed, the vendor completes the
voucher by filling in the cost of the product
supplied.
It
is alleged that between September 2006 and
January 2007, Cepeda, an approved vendor,
obtained more than 500 WIC vouchers that
she knew were stolen and used them to fraudulently
collect more than $25,000 from the New Jersey
Department of Health and Senior Services.
Cepeda deposited the vouchers in a bank
account with false information included
in them indicating her store had supplied
nutritional items to WIC participants when,
in fact, it had not.
State
Investigators Michael Behar and David Salzmann,
with the assistance of Administrative Analyst
Kathleen Ratliff, conducted the investigation
for the Division of Criminal Justice - Corruption
Bureau. Deputy Attorney General Michael
Monahan presented the case to the state
grand jury.
Third-degree
crimes carry a maximum sentence of five
years in state prison and a criminal fine
of $15,000. The indictment is merely an
accusation and the defendant is presumed
innocent until proven guilty.
The
indictment was handed up in Superior Court
in Mercer County, where Cepeda will be ordered
to appear at a later date to answer the
charges. The indictment is posted with this
release at www.njpublicsafety.com.
Attorney
General Milgram and Criminal Justice Director
Paw noted that the Division of Criminal
Justice - Corruption Bureau has established
a statewide Corruption Tipline: 1-866-TIPS-4CJ.
Additionally, the public can log on to the
Division’s Web page at www.njdcj.org
to report suspected wrongdoing. All information
received through the Division of Criminal
Justice Corruption Tipline or Web page will
remain confidential.
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