Canarsie store owner pleads guilty to exchanging millions in food stamp benefits for cash
A Canarsie supermarket owner pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) by illegally exchanging over a million dollars of food stamp benefits for cash for over two years.
“I stole from the USDA and the Food and Nutrition Service,” Eduardo Leonardo said slowly in Spanish through a translator in Brooklyn Federal Court. “It was an exchange of…benefits for cash.”
Leonardo, 57, rubbed his face red after he admitted to committing “food stamp” fraud between Oct. 2015 and March 2017 by giving customers cash in exchange for running their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards for a higher amount, which the federal government would later reimburse.