Bonner

Bonner, a naturalized U.S.

citizen from Haiti, owned the Jesuela Variety Store.

Elise May, a lawful permanent resident also from Haiti, owned the Saul Maché Mixé Store.

These two businesses were co-located within a single storefront in Boston.

To be certain, these were not supermarkets.

They were not full service groceries.

It would be a huge stretch to even call them convenience stores.

In fact, the only thing convenient about these stores was how easy it was to commit snap benefit fraud.

To put this in perspective, the Jesuela Variety Store is less than 150 square feet in size, smaller than some bathrooms.

The Saúl Maché Mixé Store was approximately 500 square feet in space.

By contrast, a supermarket can be 20,000 to 60,000 square feet in size, have a dozen or more registers, and employ numerous employees.

Both the Jesuela Variety and Salmache Mixe stores had one register, no carriages, no hand baskets, and very little food for sale.

One legitimate supermarket in the same area as these stores redeems approximately $80,000 in SNAP benefits per month.

Over the last 20 months, the Jesuela Variety store was redeeming between

and six times that amount monthly, with nowhere near the space, inventory, customers, or infrastructure to support it.

The Sal Mache Mixay store redeemed over $120,000 in SNAP benefits in the last six months.