Gypsies Accused Of Fraud Claim Discrimination But Police In Welfare Case Scoff At Defense Lawyer’s Accusation

Members of three extended families charged with welfare fraud say they are being discriminated against because many of them are Gypsies.

“This was obviously motivated by who these people were,” Tacoma defense attorney Brian Hershman said of the investigation against 27 defendants.

But police scoff at suggestions that the Pierce County families have been targeted because they are Gypsies.

“We don’t investigate people based on their ethnicity,” Pierce County sheriff’s detective Mike Turner, who headed the investigation, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The two-year probe was touched off by a citizen’s complaint to a welfare-fraud hotline. State Department of Social and Health Services investigators looked into the tip and found suspicious patterns among some welfare recipients. For example, while one woman had been receiving financial aid for children for several years, the children’s medical benefits never had been used during that time.

Pierce County police, meanwhile, were starting their own investigation.

A detective looking into a theft case notified Turner that a routine computer check had showed what appeared to be a suspicious number of police incidents involving the victimized family.

Family members were linked to about 20 traffic accidents as well as repeated instances of burglary, arson and vandalism.

“These folks with the same last name had just terrible luck,” Turner said.

Police looked into the alleged crimes and concluded many of them were staged as part of an insurance scam. There were, for example, similar patterns to all the vandalism claims, Turner said.

“There would be a square cut out of the rug on the floor so they could get the rug replaced,” he said.

“They would spray-paint the top of the Formica, but not spray-paint the wood cabinets. They would spray-paint the wall, but not the brick hearth on the fireplace.”

The sheriff’s office, DSHS, the National Insurance Crime Bureau and other agencies began coordinating their investigations. They subpoenaed bank records and set up surveillance.

Undercover agents sat next to some of the welfare recipients in casinos as they gambled. But the police didn’t have enough money to match their high-rolling ways and had to leave the tables.

“I would gamble with some women who I knew were on welfare, and they were gambling with $100 bets,” Turner said.

Police and state investigators say the state was bilked out of what could be millions of dollars in welfare payments. Police seized several luxury cars and more than $80,000 in cash when they arrested family members.

“This is the biggest thing that I’ve seen from a group,” said Deputy Prosecutor Tom Moore.

“When the first of the month rolled around, it was like payday,” Turner said.

“It was like Ed McMahon was coming to the homes with the $10 million prize.”

Police claim family members bilked insurance companies out of still more money.