Mississippi Woman Receives Three Year Prison Sentence For Feeding Her Family

[Are_grits_groceries]

Last week, a federal court in Mississippi sentenced a key figure in a $3 million mortgage fraud scheme to two and a half years in federal prison. Just a few days earlier, however, a Mississippi federal judge imposed a significantly harsher sentence on a woman who lied on her benefits applications in order to receive just $4,367 in food stamps to help feed her family:

n moments of desperation, a lie can seem like the only option. Anita McLemore, a Mississippi mother of two, faced one of those unfortunate moments when filling out her application for food stamps — and now she’ll pay the price, by spending three years of her life behind bars in federal prison.

Thanks to a federal ban on food stamps for people with felony drug convictions, people like McLemore are out of luck when it comes to getting assistance with putting food on their tables. Though states can opt out of the ban, those that don’t (like Mississippi) deny food stamps even to individuals who have already served their sentences or overcome previous addictions.

It’s true that McLemore’s past isn’t perfect — she has four felony drug convictions and one misdemeanor, which place her firmly in the category of people the federal government has declared unfit to receive public benefits. Hence, faced with the prospect of being unable to feed her family, McLemore lied on her application.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/15/369180/mississippi-woman-receives-three-year-prison-sentence-for-feeding-her-family/

You know something is very screwed up when she has to serve 3 years but WS shites aren't even inconvenienced by arrests.

If anybody had the guts and right priorities, they would have clapped those mooks in handcuffs a loooooong time go. I won't even get started on war crimes...

No gruel for you!

[Angry Dragon]

1. based on just the monies the first one should have gotten 2060 years

just saying

[Ilsa]

2. How was she supposed to get them food assistance, then?

The rule is to let kids go hungry because a parent has a felony conviction? Is that part of the definition of us being a "Christian nation?"

[laylah]

3. +1

[barbtries]

4. you said it.

we are so MEAN as a nation at this point it brings me to the edge of despair.

[BlueJazz]

5. Yep...and there are Felonies like robbing a bank, attempted murder, fraud..

...and many others that truly maim and hurt other people.....But refuse food for drug convictions??...Cruel, unfair and insane. :(

[msanthrope]

9. What makes you think she was trying to help her kids?

She was testing positive for drugs while on release. What makes you think that her food stamp money was going to her kids?

I hope no kid starves because their parents are felons, but I suggest to you that not all parents who get food stamps make sure their kids are fed.

This was her 6th conviction. Prior to this, she's gotten 10 days in jail. I'm not surprised the judge went hard on her. She may reduce by appeal.

[reggie the dog]

17. that is exactly the rule, punish the kids

plus if you have a felony you were not using state money on drugs, you were selling and doing drugs for free. so because you sold drugs to pay for your drugs you get no foodstamps whereas a misdemenor possession case means no benefits loss, so just use food stamps to buy dime bags and you will be fine.

[Yo_Mama]

19. That was my reaction!

I'm stunned. I never heard of this policy - and even if it is just toward the individual who has the felony conviction (highly questionable), it is staggeringly inhumane toward dependents who were obviously not involved.

I'm completely shocked - how many states do this?

[freshwest]

6. Ah, but the drug convictions, makes her a moral reprobate, you see? Couldn't afford 'em like Rush.

We are still in the legal framework of punishing people, and in this case, her children by default, if it can be imagined that she was, despite all, a good mother to those she was trying to feed. Now, if she'd been rich, even if not really concerned about those under her roof, she'd be in the clear. Always paid the attorneys, paid for food, drugs and whatever, even an abortion under the radar, and it would never come to light.

Only the poor are scrutinized under these laws, their business put out for public consumption, to promote a right wing stereotype to defame all who are unable to pay for the necessities of life and seek relief from the state. Now if she'd gotten her needs met by the local church, no matter what she was doing otherwise, no problem.

This media story is demonization of the social safety net and its less judgmental, thus less morally satisfying alternatives. And the primary problem these news stories always leave out is that we do not have a just system that cares for the less advantaged in this country, we have a plantation system. So we are picking and choosing who will have the necessities of life by an allegedly moral code that consistently fails to deal with the larger picture of dispossession of the poor.

Now, the wealthy person who got less time, is considered by randians, right wingers, libertarians and the religious righties to be innately morally superior by virtue of their success. The poor, well, just pile on them since their poverty proves their inferiority. So dishonest and unChristlke.

[pipi_k]

11. Just wondering...

how many drug addicts you know whose first thought is to feed their kids.

Or whose first thought is for anything beyond getting their next fix.


I would be willing to bet that at least 3/4 of those food stamps would have been sold for drug money. For herself.

A person doesn't get arrested as many times as she was, and doesn't test positive for drugs while on probation unless there is a HUGE problem.

That's not to say she is a "moral reprobate". She has a serious problem, and I frankly don't see where prison without treatment is going to turn her life around.

[freshwest]

20. I don't in as much as possible, permit any addicts in my life. I didn't say she was a good mother.

There is a huge problem out there. Treatment is not available and neither are the supports that she would have had otherwise to find sanity again. But in religious right faux morality, she deserves much more punishment than the crooked businessman.

This woman is being sent to prison for a financial crime, which is what the OP is about. Her illegal drug crime made her a second or third class citizen, dependent of the state for food stamps, which the opposing example in the OP was not having a problem with.

Perhaps the drugs she was charged over were self-medication. Or perhaps, heaven forbid, she did it for herself, for her own pleasure, to take away from the pain of life. Oh yes, the poor are libertines, not the rich. Rush Limbaugh is an addict who broke the drug law repeatedly but is not considered deserving prison, just more medical treatment that he can easily afford. All sorts of excuses have been made for him, he had a bad back, boo hoo.

She can't afford the Betty Ford Clinic and the 'starve the beast' crowd has destroyed what she needed for bootstraps. And so she keeps screwing up. Rush got his start from his Daddy's money, but he's exempt from all these personal judgments, huh?

Perhaps the analogy in the OP is reaching too far but for me the issue is that of poverty and economic justice. None of this happened in a vacuum. We're still talking about the mote in someone else's eyes and ignoring the beam in the public's eye.

Americans simply refuse to accept the concept of human equality under the law and that's becoming more clear every day.

[TransitJohn]

7. Bring it up at a Republican debate for the cheers! eom

n/t

[msanthrope]

8. When you are on release, and you test positive for drugs, and lie on your federal application,

for food stamps, you are going to get jail time.

This was this woman's 6th felony conviction. What I think tipped the judge's hand was that she had previously only served 10 days in jail...so she lucked out 5 previous times.



Wingate said McLemore's guilty plea to making false statements is her sixth conviction. But despite being a repeat offender, Wingate said, she has spent only 10 days in state custody on the state drug charges.

"While committing this offense, she was still on supervised released," Wingate said. "While on bond, she tested positive for drugs."

Wingate said McLemore has a serious drug history.

"She has been fortunate to evade any punishment," Wingate said.

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20111112/NEWS/111120339/Woman-given-3-year-prison-term-lie

[reggie the dog]

18. i had no drug tests while out on bond

and i got busted for felony possession with intenet to deliver,,, my lawyer went and played golf with the judge and i was found innocent 5 minutes into trial.

[msanthrope]

21. Too bad, nt

[noiretextatique]

22. she gets more jail time than

than a group of people recently sentenced in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme for $4367.00, and she paid the money back.
i don't care how many convictions she had...there is something very WRONG with the "justus" system.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. K&R. Thanks, sharing. n/t

[pipi_k]

12. Misleading title

She did NOT get three years for "feeding her family".

She got three years for lying on an application.


And it's a bit naive to automatically assume that she...a convicted drug addict who couldn't even stay straight while on probation...was going to use those food stamps to feed her kids.

[noiretextatique]

23. the point is

A Rankin County mother will serve more time in federal prison for lying on her food stamp application than a group of people recently sentenced in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme.

see the problem here? she got $ 4,300 in food stamps, and she paid back the money. yet she gets more time than people who stole millions of dollars. that's the fng problem.

[pipi_k]

26. I know very well what the point is

and I'm not saying it's right what happened.

But I'm sure judges don't keep running lists of who got how much time for what crime so they can be "fair" in their sentencing.

Another problem...people often get more outraged over smaller amounts because larger amounts are too difficult to imagine.

And...although there is a separation point between what constitutes a misdemeanor and what constitutes a felony, as far as I know, that's where it stops. As far as I know, there is no scale beyond that by which to sentence people...so yeah, it's unfortunate that someone who steals a few thousand gets six months more than someone who steals millions, but that's the way it is.


That doesn't mean it's right to try and inflame people's passions by stating, in an outright lie, that the woman got prison "for trying to feed her family", because, if she's an addict, that's likely complete and total bullshit.

[Are_grits_groceries]

13. I never cease to be amazed at

someat some of the arguments I read here.

I am not nominating the mother for parent of the year. However, some are making as many bad assumptions as I am assuming better ones.

However, my problem is that these are actions that have been ignored in this country:
1-War crimes - Some individual soldiers have been convicted for their actions. The architects of the mess that created the atmosphere and actions in which these heinous crimes occurred have gotten off scott free. They have also blatantly ignored the standards set down at Geneva and that were used to prosecute our enemies after WWII and other times.

2- Financial crimes - The people who work on Wall Street in high positions have not been held accountable for the mess they made of the economy. Many of them are still receiving huge bonuses. Others who had their hand in dumping the economy have also never had to worry. The very actions they took were responsible for thousands of people not being able to feed their children and started the cutting of the safety net that might have helped them more.

3- The government has decided to spend a lot of money set aside to fight drugs to arrest and close down those who dealin medical marijuana no matter what the states say. Any use of marijuana appears to be viewed as a major problem.

I could go on.
When I look at the sentence for this woman compared to the sentences not given for certain crimes or those that weren't even prosecuted, I think there is a problem with the system that is huge.
I'll spend my time trying to work on the system no matter how small my actions are rather than spend one minute smacking people who are and have been down and out. As I said, this mother is no Madonna, but spend the little money you might have on prevention rather than punitive measures after the fact and there may be less problems.

[pipi_k]

16. How do we prevent

someone from becoming a drug addict?

In reply to this:

"As I said, this mother is no Madonna, but spend the little money you might have on prevention rather than punitive measures after the fact and there may be less problems."


Becoming addicted to drugs doesn't usually happen out in the light of day. How do we know which people will likely become drug addicts?

"Just say NO" was bullshit and didn't work.

Hey, I'd like to stop it at the roots too, but how does that happen?

We only know someone is addicted to drugs after the fact. Then it's too late. Of course, I'm not only talking about what we typically think of as drugs when we hear the word, but alcoholism as well.

[Nye Bevan]

14. So if you have a drug conviction

as well as serving your actual sentence, your family is sentenced to starvation?

[Gormy Cuss]

15. Here's the key comparison: Fraud of 3 million gets less of a sentence than fraud of $6400

And in McLemore's case, she made restitution of the entire benefit. The judge went beyond the usual sentence for her type of fraud (6-8 months) and opted for a much harsher penalty. Unless she's going to a facility with a really good drug treatment program (REALLY unlikely) and there's someone who can take care of her teenage kids while she's in jail, this sentence is only going to make matters worse for her and her family.

[midnight]

24. Our war on drugs originates with AlEC legislation, and this group is

funded by the Kochs. The Koch family lineage goes back to their relatives running the prison labor for Hitler... We need to weed these Koch funded people out of our legislative bodies, and our court systems...

[Obamanaut]

25. . nt