A Valley Stream woman was charged with grand larceny, welfare fraud, and offering a false instrument for filing for allegedly lying about her household composition, income, and assets, and wrongfully receiving more than $50,000 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly.
On Thursday, Oct. 30, Latoya Cummings was charged with grand larceny, welfare fraud and seven counts of offering a false instrument for filing.
She pleaded not guilty and, if convicted, faces a sentence of up to five to 15 years in prison, the DA said.
Donnelly said Cummings applied to the Nassau County Department of Social Services in December 2016 in support of her family’s certification for SNAP benefits.
In her initial application, she indicated that she and her three children lived at an address on William Street in Valley Stream and did not have any income, as well as claiming that her monthly rent was $1,500, $1,300 of which was paid by an absent parent and that she received $300 per month from the absent parent for child support, Donnelly said.
Cummings submitted 12 SNAP recertifications, twice a year, between 2017 and 2023, each restating the same information and including a letter, purportedly signed by the absent parent, that stated he had paid $1,300 directly to the landlord of the home and provided Cummings with monthly child support, the DA said.
Cummings also submitted 11 shelter verification forms between December 2017 and December 2023 with that information, and each had the fake signature of the landlord, Donnelly said.
A county investigation determined that the absent parent owned the William Street home used on the applications and was a member of the household, according to Donnelly. It was found that the absent parent purchased the home from the original landlord in 2016, and that from 2016 to 2022, he had annual wages ranging from $64,048 to $145,560, the DA said.
Donnelly said that both his presence at the home and his income rendered Cummings’ family ineligible for the roughly $52,632 in SNAP benefits she received.
“Every dollar stolen through fraud like this takes away from a family just trying to make ends meet,” Donnelly said after the arraignment.
