Couple in U.S. lived on yacht, collected welfare: prosecutor

[aGameOfThrones]

(Reuters) - A couple who collected food stamps and other public assistance from Minnesota while living on a yacht in Florida were being sought on fraud charges, prosecutors said on Friday.

Colin Chisholm III and his wife, Andrea Chisholm, accepted more than $165,000 in public assistance between 2005 and 2012 before benefits were terminated, according to prosecutor Mike Freeman in Hennepin County, Minnesota.

Charges against Colin Chisholm were filed in February but they were kept sealed while police searched for the couple, Chuck Laszewski, a spokesman for Freeman, said on Friday. "They know by now we are looking for them."

The Chisholms are each charged with a felony count of wrongfully obtaining public assistance in excess of $35,000, the highest threshold under Minnesota law. Andrea Chisholm was charged on Thursday.

They bought a $1.2 million yacht, The Andrea Aras, in 2005 shortly after applying for welfare benefits in Minnesota, according to complaints against them. They have been accused of living on the yacht in the area of Palm Beach, Florida, for 28 months while lying about living in Minnesota.

Colin Chisholm was the chief executive officer of a satellite television and broadband services company, his wife bred and sold championship dogs, and over a seven-year period the couple deposited more than $2.6 million in bank accounts they did not report on applications for welfare benefits, according to the complaint.

http://news.yahoo.com/couple-u-lived...224125586.html


Comment:

Michael 5 hours ago 0 49
Reading more, it sounds like there is much more to this story and it's more than welfare cheats. This story skips over some details. They signed papers for the $1.2 million dollar yacht in 2005 and lived on it for 28 months. Based on the documents from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the 28 months seems to be how long it took for the guy who sold it to them to get it back because they didn't make payments on it. March 2008, they moved into a luxury home in Minnesota and were evicted in under a year. Feb 2009, they moved into another luxury home. Reading between the lines, sounds like it may have been purchased, possibly improperly, with the funds of her grandmother.

The maximum sentence for what they are charged with is 20 years Authorities have been looking for them for a month now though they believe they have fled the country. The website for the company he is CEO of is just BS fluff that could be put together in a few hours even though the complaint references it provided him with $1 million dollars in deposits for satellite services to the Carribbean. The other $2.6 million in deposits may have came from her breeding business where amounts are subjective. Sounds like more than just welfare fraud here, but welfare fraud sounds like the easiest thing to prove and prosecute.

[oyarde]

Gallows .

[tod evans]

As far as I'm concerned that prosecutor is just as guilty of welfare fraud as the accused couple.

His salary is nothing more than welfare for an unproductive lawyer.

[kcchiefs6465]

Shocking.

[69360]

I understand the circumstances of this particular case and what they did was illegal.

But under current welfare laws the primary residence is exempt from the asset test regardless of value. So they could legally have filed for food stamps in Florida while living on a million dollar yacht if they did not work and had no savings.