Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Nashville Snap Violation Attorneys

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has become the flagship anti-poverty measure within the United States. With origins tracing all the way back to the Roosevelt Administration, the current food stamp program was first constituted, in modern form, in the mid 1960s. Under Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty initiative, the SNAP program quickly became the chief means by which the United States ensured that none of its residents suffered the worst consequences of extreme poverty.

Today, the SNAP program keeps over 40 million Americans from suffering hunger or starvation and is able to ensure that the country’s most vulnerable children are able to grow up big and strong, not stifled by the horrible effects of childhood malnutrition. The program, overall, has been a huge point of pride of the progressive movement, with countries around the globe turning to the SNAP program of the United States to see how to implement policies that are proven to ameliorate poverty’s worst effects.

However, for all of its many successes, the SNAP program was long beset by a high incidence of fraud and abuse. Throughout the first decade of the program’s existence, it was estimated that as much as ten cents of every dollar spent on the program was diverted through fraud and abuse. This unacceptably high rate of graft led to a concerted government crackdown. In the 1970s, a special arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency tasked with running the SNAP program, was created. Known as the Food and Nutrition Service, the new agency came to employ more than 100 full-time investigators and analysts, whose sole job has been the elimination of fraud from the food stamp program.

These efforts have reduced the total incidence of fraud down to just one cent of every dollar spent in benefits at the retail level being consumed by abuse and fraud. While this has been a major success from an enforcement standpoint, one of the collateral effects of this heightened enforcement activity has been increasing numbers of innocent store owners caught in the wide dragnet of the FNS.

As a result, each year in the United States, some 15,000 store owners find themselves the target of USDA investigations into SNAP abuse. Among these, about 5,000 end up facing some kind of punishment. This can include everything from fines to up to 25 years in prison. Unfortunately, many of these store owners are completely innocent, and many have done nothing more than simply not paying sufficient attention to the regulations or the actions of their employees.

If you are accused, hire the lawyer you can, as soon as you can

If you are a SNAP-eligible store owner, it is imperative that you hire competent and experienced legal counsel the moment you learn that you are the target of a USDA investigation. The USDA will notify you that they suspect you, your store or your employees have been engaged in untoward behavior regarding the SNAP program by a letter sent through the mail. If you receive a USDA letter detailing accusations of SNAP violations, you must hire a lawyer as soon as possible. Failure to do so will likely result in your exclusion from the SNAP program and serious losses in revenues. More serious violations could result in you being sent to jail or even prison.

A good lawyer can help

SNAP-related legal cases constitute a challenging and unique area of legal practice. But the good news is that, if quickly you hire an experienced lawyer who specializes in this area of law, almost all cases relating to SNAP violations can be negotiated down to paying a small fine. This is especially true where the accused store owner has no previous violations of SNAP regulations and where there is obviously no criminal intent.

However, failure to get a competent lawyer on your side may result in much more serious penalties being applied. You only have ten days from the time you receive your USDA letter outlining the alleged violations to make contact with the office and resolve the case. Failure to do so will almost always result in temporary exclusion from the SNAP program and an inability to perform EBT transactions.