By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Perkins woman has been ordered to pay $3,534 in restitution for obtaining food stamps during a 10-month period by false representations to a caseworker for the Department of Human Services.
Kristen Angela Day, 47, was placed on probation for four years by Payne County Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler on her guilty plea to the felony charge last week. Day was fined $100 and ordered to sign a form of disqualification to obtain food stamps, court records show.
The case was investigated by Senior Agent Phillip Ott with the Oklahoma DHS Office of Inspector General’s fraud unit, court records show.
Day misrepresented her household composition by not reporting her children’s father and his income, according to Ott’s affidavit.
If Day’s husband, who has not been charged in the case, “was reported in the home and his income had been properly reported, the household would have been ineligible to receive welfare assistance,” the affidavit said.
After the agent interviewed Day at the Payne County DHS Office on May 28, 2019, she asked what would happen next, the affidavit said.
“Ms. Day requested Agent Ott not to speak with her neighbors. Ms. Day then made the statement she was not truthful with Agent Ott about something,” the affidavit said.
“Ms. Day stated her mother does not live in Tulsa (as she had told the agent); she lives next door. This is the reason why she does not want Agent Ott to speak with her neighbors,” the affidavit said. The agent again told her that he would speak with her neighbors, the affidavit said.
“Ms. Day stated the neighbors were going to tell Agent Ott that (her husband) is there at least two weeks out of every month. Agent Ott asked if this was the case and she said yes, but it wasn’t two weeks straight,” the affidavit said.
“Agent Ott asked Ms. Day if the maroon Tahoe was not actually her friend’s,” as she had told the agent, but her husband’s vehicle, the affidavit said.
“Ms. Day stated, ‘Possibly…I just don’t want to get in trouble,"” the affidavit said.
The agent said that he spoke to two neighbors, who said they did not know the couple well, the affidavit said.
“Both stated they believed they have lived together in the home since moving into the neighborhood around the first part of 2019,” the affidavit said.
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