Oregon businessman sentenced to prison for food-stamp fraud

HILLSBORO, Ore. – A man who ran a food-stamp fraud scheme out of his two Beaverton businesses has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.

But Washington County Judge Suzanne Upton offered Mahmoud Tajgerdu a deal: For every $10,000 he pays before his restitution hearing in August, she’ll take a year off his sentence until it falls to seven years, four months.

Tajgerdu was taken into custody after Friday’s hearing.

Tajgerdu brought $35,000 to the courtroom, money the judge did not count as part of the deal. He said he would give nothing more: “I want to go to jail forever,” he said.

His wife approached the prosecutor and law enforcement officers in the room.

“Please help me,” she said, crying. “I have kids.”

During the hearing, prosecutors said Tajgerdu, 42, lived a lavish lifestyle while bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the federal assistance program. The theft occurred when Tajgerdu, the owner of a halal meat market and a gas station, rang up phony transactions and charged his customers a fee to illegally exchange their food stamp benefits for cash.

“The defendant had one motivation and one motivation only,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Bracken McKey said, “and it was greed.”

Tajgerdu pleaded guilty in March to aggravated first-degree theft and unlawful use of food stamps.