In the history of the world, has any hypocrite ever been fair? (Nope.) A Syracuse.com report has the story of an upstate New York diner owner who employed an anti-tax, anti-government brand to market his restaurant. The publicity might have been good for business, until he was discovered to have stolen from the very welfare programs he derided. (Check, please!)
According to the report, the diner’s menu quite artfully advertised the owner’s political beliefs with menu items, listed for the reasonable price of $3.59 plus an exorbitantly inflated tax of $27.99. (But free speech can leave a bad taste in your mouth when it’s served up with a side of hypocrisy.)
After the diner owner, along with his wife, were caught intentionally undervaluing their assets so they could collect more than $23,000 in Medicaid benefits, they pleaded guilty to offering a false instrument for filing, were forced to repay the money they stole and each were sentenced to one year of conditional discharge.
Moral of the story? Pilfering taxpayer-funded programs while dishing out insults about the government for providing them is a sure way to get burned.
Source: Today’s ”Fraud of the Day” is based on, ”Diner owner whose menu lampoons Obama guilty in welfare fraud case,” written by Mike McAndrew and published by Syracuse.com on June 2, 2016.
The owner of a diner whose menu includes an ‘anti-government’ egg special that comes with a grossly inflated tax has admitted he defrauded the government of more than $23,000 in welfare benefits.
Michael P. Tassone, owner of the American Diner in suburban Liverpool, was sentenced May 5 to a one year conditional discharge after he pleaded guilty to offering a false instrument for filing, a misdemeanor. Tassone paid $23,354 in restitution to the Onandaga County Department of Social Services as part of the disposition of the five-year-old case.
As part of the resolution of the criminal case, the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office dismissed a more serious felony welfare fraud case against Tassone.
