Amidst the national conversation about Somali fraud that has run rampant in Minnesota under Gov. Tim Walz (D., Minn.), Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) released her latest Squeal Award, targeting intra-family fraudsters.
Her latest bill, the No Cash for Cohabitating Kins of Crooks Act, is designed to prohibit spending taxpayer dollars on goods, services, loans, contracts, grants, or reimbursements to convicted fraudsters, as well as their spouses and roommates.
While Ernst is leaving the Senate next year, she is spending her final months in office focusing on one of the issues that first propelled her into federal office: wasteful spending. Ernst has also worked closely with Vice President JD Vance’s Fraud Task Force to codify good-government fixes that stop fraud before it happens.
In Ernst’s latest Squeal Awards, she spotlights how for some people, fraud is all in the family. One group of recipients is “a quartet of grifting grandmothers, who are all sisters, [who] fleeced USDA for over $11.5 million by filing nearly 200 false discrimination claims on behalf of fake farmers. The swindling sisters spent the loot on pricey properties and automobiles,” her office noted.
Another group of recipients consists of “two brothers and their wives in California stole $18 million of pandemic aid and spent the money on million-dollar mansions, diamonds, gold, and cryptocurrency. To avoid prison, the criminal couples abandoned their teenage children, leaving behind only a typewritten note, and fled to seaside villa in the Mediterranean. They were eventually caught and all four parents are now prisoners.”
